Detoxing from Dreams
by MakLeon
Summary: The story of pre-, while- and post-74th -75th Hunger Games events as seen through the eyes of the District 12 girl who grows up going to school with the future star-crossed lovers, and gradually comes to play her role in their mentor's life. Book!canon Haymitch (paunch, PTSD, no fluff, etc)
1. Chapter 1 The Star

\- 1-

I have often been told I was born under a lucky star if such a star has ever shone upon our District 12, or any other districts. It seems that stars and the sun alike choose to send their rays straight to Capitol. Either that, or they just cannot break through all this coal dust from the Seam. Well, if this one tiny baby-star did, for some reason, it picked me out of all the kids.

Much more deserving kids, as my uncle Rote would say. Much lovelier ones, as my aunt Nola would sign. Much smarter as well, as some of my former classmates would probably smirk. And I would just smile back brightly and say, "Yeah, sure, but so what?" - as if I do not care at all - that's what I usually do. The best response against any offence is to agree that your offender might be completely justified, only you don't give a damn about them. It works so nicely I have even managed to persuade myself that what others say does not really matter. Most of the others... There is an exception for every rule.

My lucky star must have been shining particularly brightly during the whole bleak snowy week of Christmas 64 ADD when both of my parents died one after another from the pox epidemic that took over almost one sixth of the district. I was five and a half then, and did not get infected only by some miracle. There are no photos, and I do not remember their faces clearly anymore. Only a faded image of a small bird-like woman who always danced and sang as she cleaned the house or cooked dinner. She had soft light brown hair and warm breath smelling of something sweet like marmalade... I tried marmalade only once at Madge Undersee's birthday party and for many years after, I believed it was the best treat ever.

My aunt Nola says I do not look much alike to either of my parents. As a teen, it made me strangely sad. I used to spend quite a while in front of the mirror. My elder cousins Grita and Rote mocked me, my aunt shooed me away, but I was only desperately trying to find a trace of my parents in my own face until my eyes watered. I even had my small ritual. Every Christmas when my relatives went to bed after a somewhat luxurious dinner of a roasted turkey or sometimes even a lamb, I climbed into the big closet in the living room. The closet had a mirror inside. Its surface was dimly shimmering in the light of my flashlight. I put on my aunt's lipstick and brushed my hair to one side. I smiled, and tossed my head, and moved my shoulders in a way I saw the Capitol TV singers do. I pretended to be my mother singing and dancing in her small kitchen.

The habit is still there. Up till today, I sometimes dance in front of the mirror in the bedroom or bathroom when no one is there to see me. I like to think of that not as a vanity, but as connection across the time and space. The only connection between me and the memory of the little woman who - they say - was as brave or, perhaps, as stupid as not to leave her husband's side once he got sick. Even though it was obvious from the very start that he had no chance of surviving. Almost no one of the first victims of the epidemic did. And it took quite a while for the Capitol to send us some vaccine. My mother brought me to my aunt's house and came back immediately to stay with my father. Till the end. Her own end.

The Peacekeepers were ordered to burn the bodies of the deceased to avoid spreading the infection. That was probably cheaper than disinfecting everyone and everything around after the burial. Most of the things from our house were burnt too. That is why I have no photos of my parents.

I started it all wrong. This is my story, true, but it is not about me at all. Yet, where do I begin? How can I tell about the person who seemed to be always there as long as I can remember. A part and parcel of District 12. Like a never descending coal dust cloud over the Seam. Like the gloomy shed of mine holes in the dark-grey stony earth. Our symbol. Our shameful pride. Our very own. The only victor alive, and probably the only one we are ever going to have, or so we all thought until the second-to-last Hunger Games.

I have seen him quite a few times on the weekends heading off to the Hob where they sell those ever scarce drinks, and then back to his huge house in that empty village. Bottles clinking in his bag. Stumbling slow steps. Wrinkled clothes and expressionless face. How old is he or rather how young?

When my aunt Nola mentions once that him and my uncle Rote are the same age, I gape at her in disbelief. For some reason, he seems to me like something eternal, someone out of time and space. I cannot imagine he might have once been a youngster on those old black and white photos my uncle has back from his school years. They were classmates. Like me, Delly, Peeta, and Katniss.

"How did it feel having a future victor as your classmate, dad?" asks Rote once, and my uncle snorts.

"It's been quite a while. Haymitch was a loner. Didn't think much of our kin even then, I'd guess."

"Is it true he killed his girlfriend and dig the body in the Meadow at midnight?" chimes in Grita a bit tremulously. "That's what people say."

"No way," answers my uncle. "All this woman talk. He is sure a weirdo, but he ain't no one's girlfriend murderer."

"But even my teacher says..." persists Grita.

"Girls were sure fond of him though in those days after he came back a victor,"my uncle remarks. "Even your mum took a fancy."

"Rote..." my aunt hastily interrupts and blushes ever so slightly as my uncle grins.

"Ain't I saying the truth? You swooning over him till the day of our wedding. Just like other morons. Dreamed of becoming a mistress of a large house, huh? Ended up in mine instead."

I don't ask any questions. First, because my uncle would never trouble himself with talking to me. It is already enough that he has to pay for my food and clothing, as my aunt Nola never gets tired to repeat. And then, I still do not believe that this tall dark man - this legend from the long-gone past - could ever lead a real normal life. The kind of life my cousin Rote now has. All this laughing, and story-telling, and girls. The kind of life me, Delly, and Peeta have. Dull lessons and a lot of homework, and sleeping at the back of the classroom, and running away to the Meadow, and getting punished for this.

He goes to the Hob at dusk, never in the mornings. He leaves when the sun is going down and colors the dusty air in faint pink. His long shadow stretching far ahead of him. The darkness is closing all around him as he ascents the hill leading to the Victors' Village.

People do talk. In a small place like ours where everyone knows everyone else and nothing ever happens except the yearly deadly reapings, occasional epidemics or mine accidents what's left but to talk over and over again about someone who has once made District 12 famous. Some are sympathetically clinging their tongues: "One day this fellow is going to drink himself dead, and no one will ever notice till the next Hunger Games come." Some - and these are usually the relatives of the dead tributes - are bitter: "Such a nice house he has. What a shame! What a waste of money! What did he do to deserve all of this? Watching our kids die and not doing anything."

And then there are all kinds of rumors. The dead girlfriend whose spirit haunts late-night walkers in the Meadow is the most popular of many others. Even when my uncle Rote grudgingly says that this is a tale made up to scare young lovers from lingering in the Meadow after dark, Grita and other kids are still terrified and avoid the place in the evenings. The haunted Victors' Village is another well-known story that the merchant kids like to tell hurdling together somewhere in the dark corner of the square, in a safe proximity to the shining windows of their parents' shops.

The sky is pitch black. The stars are pale and already fading when someone begins in a deep whisper: "... And there was that big dark house on the top of the dark hill. No one has ever come close by to the place. No one but Haymitch..."

I am sitting there as well. Listening to the speakers interchanging one another. Never interfering and never taking on the line. Inside my head there is another story in which the lonely man beats off the demons and ghosts instead of pairing up with them to scare the neighbourhood children. Deep in my heart I know that although my tale is all cooked-up, it is still more true than what the others say. One does not have to believe that something is true. One has to feel it from within.

That's how I know this...

\- 2 -

I am nine or ten years old. One summer evening I am running past the Hob back to the merchant section. I have been wandering around as usual searching for a discreet place to practice a new dance from the Capitol Saturday night show without anyone overlooking and booing me. Now I am late for dinner. My aunt Nola will be so angry, and my uncle Rote simply hates non-punctual people. As a merchant, he knows the price of everything including people. Absent-minded irresponsible youngsters like myself are certainly worth less than pig's entrails which means not worth feeding. That's what he says.

I am very hungry. Today is Sunday, everyone cooks something tasty for their evening meal, and Peeta's mother is in her bakery all day long. She does not take an afternoon break; therefore, no way of asking him for a tiny-itty-bitty piece.

As the road winds on the steep slope, I run faster and faster watching only my feet so as not to triple over some big stone. If I fall and mess my dress in the mud, that certainly will not increase my chances of getting dinner. I do not even look ahead. No one ever goes this way except some random adventure-seeking kids. At the full speed, I reach the end of the slope and head on to the main street where the shops start. I circle around the fence and then... boom...

I bang my head on someone's chest. Tinkling of the broken glass. Pungent smell of liquor. I do know this smell since my uncle drinks a glass now and then on holidays. Someone is swearing under-breath, as this someone's hand grabs my shoulder and almost lifts me off the ground I am sitting on. The collision was so strong, I fell on my behind probably bruising myself.

"Are you damned blind or on fire?" asks the man, and as I raise my eyes, I immediately recognize him. Haymitch Abernathy. Our ever drunk victor. The only owner of the haunted place. And this broken glass is all that is left of his liquor bottles. Of course, how could I have forgotten?! Weekend evenings! The drinks at the Hob...

I am so scared I cannot move or even make a sound. Once I broke a plate at home, and my aunt immediately tugged on my hair, while my uncle tried on me his leather belt. But these are my relatives. They are generally kind people. Didn't they agree to my living at their place? And that was only one plate... Here I stand in front of the victor of the Hunger Games who probably killed more people in one day than the flies that my aunt slaps down in our kitchen on a hot afternoon. What makes it even worse - judging by the sound and all this liquid spilling on the ground, I destroyed far more than one bottle.

I am so scared I cannot even see his face clearly. Besides, it is getting dark. So, I cannot really tell... is he very angry? He still holds on my shoulder. Is he going to slap me or ...?

I blurt the first thing that comes to my mind:

"Please, please, sir, don't! Don't kill me..."

He makes a strange sound like snorting or laughing, and all rumors wildly alive, I plead with him again:

"Please, I'll never ever again... only don't kill me like you killed your girlfriend!"

"What?" he breathes out sharply as if I again kicked him under the ribs.

All I can do is to put my hands over my head so that when he first hits me, it won't be in the face or ear. That's what I do with my uncle, and it usually works.

But instead, he suddenly lets go of me. For a moment, I watch his face now clearly visible in the pale blinking light of the streetlight that has just been turned on. There is something in his face that keeps me staring on even though the smartest thing I can probably do is to take my chances and run away... It is something very subtle... something I cannot name but that makes me gasp and say hastily:

"I am so sorry... I didn't mean..."

And sorry I am. I do not exactly understand why, but this does not go in any comparison with the "sorry" I usually mutter to my aunt's precious plates and tea cups.

Haymitch Abernathy does not even look at me. It is not anger or hurt, no... It is as if I am not there anymore. As if he has already forgotten I just bumped into him and smashed his liquor bottles. He slowly rearranges what's left of them in the bag, dugs in and throws away glass debris. His forefinger starts bleeding, and he wipes it off his pants quite absentmindedly. Then, he gets out a bottle and takes a big gulp. I see his Adam's apple twitching.

He goes away slightly staggering. I watch his back. His bent shoulders and sweaty shirt.

I think that was the day I first really see Haymitch Abernathy as a real person. Not just a symbol of the hateful Games or the main character of some scary stories. It was not only what I see in his eyes. It was also this incomprehensible unbelievable way he just left me there. Without even as much as telling me off. That shattered all my ideas about who is good and who is bad. Before that evening, I have always thought my uncle was a good decent man. Everyone from the merchants respected him. He had also taken me into his family although he did not have too - that's what my aunt always says. On the contrary, Haymitch was considered to be not exactly bad, but someone better not to be dealt with. Yet, my uncle would have sure beaten me black and blue if he were at Haymitch's place...

I have been avoiding passing by the Hob ever since. Not that I am afraid of Haymitch. It's just that I feel strangely guilty. I do not know why, so I decide it is because of the expensive bottles. Better not to try my luck. What if Haymitch decides to tell on me to my uncle if he sees me again?


	2. Chapter 2 I am Volunteered

\- 1-

The day is cold and blizzardy. Everywhere I look I see red eyes and noses running. Slouched shoulders. Nothing but black and grey. The Seam color. The color of our winter. People shuffle on in the mud. It is the official mourning day. The funeral day. Even though what's there to bury? The bloody bits and pieces - the only thing left of those who died in the mine explosion. The most massive one for the past decade, or so they say.

My cousin Rote is not like me. His lucky star did not do a very good job. He was not even supposed to be in the mines on that day. He is not a regular worker. No, not him, hardly of age, the only son of one of the wealthiest merchants in the district. He came to the miners' supervisor to talk about coal delivery to our house. The standard fall-winter order. On the other hand, his star certainly managed better than the stars of Mr. Everdeen and other miners. Rote is alive although missing his upper left limb and a couple of fingers on his right hand.

I see Katniss far ahead of me next to her tiny fair sister and her slim mother who is now staring into nothingness and looks as if she is about to pass out at any moment. Both cling to Katniss, and my classmate seems like an autumn tree on the top of the hill trying to keep its last leaves from being shaken off by the angry wind.

I would have liked to claim that I have always admired Katniss, but in fact, my feelings are far more conflicting. To begin with, we have never been close. I am a kid from the merchant section, and naturally I am expected to hang out with Peeta, Delly and alike. My aunt is strangely peculiar about me and Grita playing with the Seam children. Not that I have much time for one or the other, anyway. With all the household work my aunt expects me to complete every day and the school homework on the top.

As a result, Katniss and me barely talk during class breaks, and after classes, she disappears swift as an arrow from her father's bow. Nearly everyone knows her father has one. Otherwise, where would the Seam have the cheap meat from? Yet, everyone keeps to themselves about Mr. Everdeen hunting. Katniss herself is not wordy.

Peeta seems to fancy her. His eyes become very gentle, and even his voice changes slightly as she briskly walks by. Sometimes Delly and me nudge one another and snort; sometimes we pretend we don't see what is going on with him. Whatever we do is wasted on Peeta as well as his sighs are clearly wasted on Katniss, which is a pity because I like Peeta. He is not as loud and nasty as other boys at school who keep pulling the ribbons off my hair or pinching me when the teacher is not looking in our direction.

I do not like Katniss that much. She is always on her own. She has no girl friends, and I would indeed like to see what happens to the boy who dares to pinch her! Yet, I often wish I could sing like her, or shout out the correct answer for the math problem or geography quiz instead of mumbling something incoherent in front of our frustrated teacher. Yes, I seem to be hopeless at all subjects except drawing. And even at this, Peeta is much better. I am only the second best. Anyway, it does not matter since drawing is an elective class, and my aunt Nola made me drop it and take on sewing and cooking classes instead. The only thing that makes me feel better about myself is dancing. Oh, of that I am sure, no one can dance like I do. Not just our district traditional dances but Capitol style as well? But then, who would care?

Again, I glance at Katniss, grim, tearless, bending against the wind, clutching at her thin coat collar. Suddenly I remember Mr. Everdeen. He could also sing so well that people were gathering in the pub just to listen to him on the weekend. He often came to pick up Katniss after school for a walk on Saturday afternoons. She always told us they were off to the Meadow, but I knew better. Once, a year or two ago, he showed up as I was sitting on the stone bench in the school yard feeling miserable. I tore my new school dress ( Grita's dress she had recently outgrown) by sitting on a nail. That meant no less than hearty beating from my aunt, and all weekend dusting off the store basement.

I remember Mr. Everdeen smiled at me and asked why I was so sad, and when I told him, he stroked my head and said some day he would ask my uncle to let me go for a walk with him and Katniss. Just like that. When it is sunny, and the birds are singing in the Meadow, that's what he said. Of course, this never happened. Either my uncle did not like the idea, or Mr. Everdeen simply forgot to ask. I never found out, and it did not even dawn on me to ask Katniss. Still, it was nice of him to suggest this. I remember his smile and wrinkles in the corners of his gray eyes - Seam eyes - Katniss's eyes. I suddenly want to cry so badly, and the only way to hold back my tears is to murmur some funny song, ever so quietly. The only song that comes to my mind right now is the Harvest Festival chanting, but it's better than nothing.

"What's the matter with you, girl? It's funerals, for damn sake!"

My uncle shakes me and slaps across the face in front of everyone. And that's when I notice Haymitch Abernathy. Standing aside from the others. Drunk as usual, if not even more than usual. His hair tossed and heavily plastered with snow. His eyes half-closed. A half-empty bottle in his hand. Whistling a popular melody they play at the weddings.

\- 2 -

I last see my lucky star shining as brightly as never before in the midday-blue sky on the glaringly hot day of my first reaping.

That day... I wake up when it is still dark. Did I even sleep at all? It feels as if I have been forever sitting on my bed clutching the pillow and trembling so violently that I get cramps. My 18-year-old cousin Grita sleeps soundly next to me. She has nothing to be afraid of. She has never been reaped and will surely escape this time as well. Nobody ever discusses this openly in my uncle's house, but somehow I know how it happens. Certain kids' names do not get drawn from the bowl. For example, Madge. Or Grita. This will likely not be my case though.

By midday I am so shaky and cold that I have to put on Rote's sweater even though it is so hot and stuffy that the pavement on the square is about to melt. Grita sighs and rolls her eyes when she sees me coming. "Oh come on, you silly goose, unlike those Seam people, you did not even have to take any tesserae, did you? What's to be scared of?"

Rote does not say anything and pats me on the shoulder with what is left of his right hand.

I vomit twice. First time before the breakfast and another time after even though I have not been able to eat or drink anything. I am probably smelling not too nicely because once in the square next to my classmates, they move one after another until I am in the center of a tiny circle. I look up trying to see the stage in-between the shoulders of the elder girls. I have seen it many times from better locations but never before from the inside of the reaping square. It seems much more higher. And empty. Oh, so empty with those three chairs awaiting for the high guest from the Capitol, the Mayor and Haymitch.

Involuntarily I step back until my spine touches the rope, and one of the peacekeepers nudges me forward. I wince as he lightly pushes me and turn around. My uncle and my aunt stand not so far from me, and I try to catch their eye. If them or anyone else at least smiled at me, it would not be so bad. I would not feel so lonely in this big crowd of teens crowding together as a pack of geese on a market day. Neither my aunt nor my uncle seems to notice that I am almost next to their side. They are clasping each other's hands and strain to see Grita so intensely as if she were to be transported straight to the arena as soon as they blink or look away. I believe on this day of the year they become as close of a family as never before. Me excluded.

I cannot help but look at the stage, white and blazing in the blinding sunlight. The square is fully packed now. The Mayor starts on his usual speech that sounds like some meaningless droning to me. I feel nausea raising up, my throat tightens, and I desperately bite my lips not to puke right here in front of my classmates. It is so scorching hot that my lips are all dry and cracked. I want to drink almost as badly as I want to vomit. By the time the Mayor wraps up his speech and steps aside for Effie Trinket, the green-haired newcomer from the Capitol, I start hiccupping. The only thing that saves me from being laughed at is that my classmates seem to be in no better condition. Delly has scratched her palms raw, and both of her hands are bleeding. Katniss... she looks right in front of herself, tall, skinny and very straight. She has changed since the last year. No longer a devil-may-care tomboy running out of the school doors into her father's hands. No father. That with her tesserae. She is worse off than me. Yet, even the sight of Katniss does not bring me any courage.

And then something incredible happens.

"Grita Rosany!" exclaims Ms. Trinket, and not so far behind me someone shrieks back. This high-pitched wail is so much unlike my aunt Nola's usual businesslike patter that I do not recognize her at once.

My cousin steps out. Although she is thrice my size and almost twice my height, she seems so small now. Like a lost child. Once on the stage, she lowers her head so that only her smooth hair parting is seen. I think she must be crying now and does not want the screens to show this.

I am not brave. Nothing like Katniss. Unlike her four years later, I do not volunteer to be a tribute. No one in the class runs slower than me. No one is more afraid of blood. I panicked and wailed at the sight of the needle when registering for my reaping. I cannot even think of myself in the arena. All I have is my dancing. Perhaps, if I dance at the tributes' final interview, it might somehow prick the sponsors. But once in the arena, I would probably just fall covering my head and get killed at the very first moment... The very idea of this makes me sick yet again. Yes, I could have never been able to volunteer, and I did not. Instead, I AM volunteered...


	3. Chapter 3 Sticks and Stones

\- 1-

Everything happens so dizzyingly quickly. Even though later in my rare dreams it will always be slow motion-like.

Somehow my uncle manages to squeeze in between the two Peacekeepers and steps right behind me. I wonder why they do not stop him? Is it because surprisingly he does not make any attempt to rush upfront to the stage? Is it possible for them to sympathize with him because he is a well-known and respected man in the district?

At first I just gape at my uncle as he - has he gone mad? - hugs me. My aunt probably has the same opinion if she is at all able to think about and notice anything but her gasping and sobbing daughter.

And then I feel my uncle raising me up - higher and higher into the air - and I look at him blankly, I have no idea what is going on but my instinct of a wild animal in a trap tells me something is terribly wrong - I try to wriggle out but he holds me so tight that I can barely breath.

"There is a volunteer! She is right here!"

It is my uncle's somewhat shaky but still loud voice. As people start to turn around, he whispers coarsely and urgently.

"Say yes, Lia, my dear darling girl, say you volunteer... I'll damn strangle you, stupid cow... you know I will."

I want to shout out "No!" but the pain in my ribs, heat, and fear he might strangle me right here and now make my head swim, and I squeal.

"Yes, I vo..volunteer.."

It is ever so faint "yes" but it somehow sounds very loud. My uncle's grasp upon me immediately weakens, and I am left standing alone in the widening circle of my peers.

The green-haired Capitol girl flutters her long eyelashes and starts searching for something in her tiny handbag. I have never seen her before, so this must be her first year in our district.

"But this is against the rules", the Mayor exclaims somewhat unsure, probably because my uncle has been his nearest supporter, as well as a good friend all these years, and my uncle bellows back:

"She said "yes", didn't she? So, what more do you need?"

Everyone suddenly falls silent, as my uncle shouts - almost screams - desperately.

"What difference does it make who is to be reaped after all? Are you all humans, or what? This is a family matter, right? Ain't family members allowed to step in for one another?"

Suddenly Haymitch Abernathy laughs from his chair and claps on his knee. I look at him in ever growing panic. But all he says is.

"Well, Rote, why don't you just get someone's baby out of the crib? Will be much simpler. Babies say neither "yes" or "no".

This apparently solves the problem. The Mayor chimes in avoiding to look at my uncle and Grita. Ms. Trinket hastily retrieves and looks through her booklet and after what seems to me like eternity, titters something about a volunteer who is supposed to make his or her choice without any outside interference. People whisper and grunt grudgingly, and then again get very quiet as the girl names a boy tribute.

I stand very still. Looking straight at the stage. At my pale cousin stumbling to shake hands with the boy whose face seems vaguely familiar. At Ms. Trinket's green ringlets. At Haymitch scowling at her. I stand still feeling my classmates' eyes on me, with my ribs bruised, and something warm trickling down my leg. That's when I am so happy I put on my cousin's old sweater that is right at my knee level.

\- 2 -

My cousin Grita is killed on the second day of the Hunger Games. Hit in the head while drinking from the pool she has just found after two days of wandering in what looks like some dunes. Her mate outlives her by two more days. Dies of a snakebite. As I watch them both dying, I cannot help but imagining myself right there. I might have as well been.

On the day of Grita's death, I run away and wander in the Meadow till the night is closing in. I know it is bad of me. I should be mourning my cousin. Instead, I feel such a strong joy. I feel so alive with a whole year between today and the next reaping that I start dancing right there, in the Meadow, and warm summer rain shimmers all around me.

\- 3 -

Haymitch Abernathy steps off the train two weeks later. By that time my uncle has already run out of his storage of swearing words while my aunt has exhausted her tears. My uncle fell out with the Mayor, and beat one of our neighbors who mentioned that they still have their son and me. He would have beaten me too, only I tried not to be around. The neighbors seem to be sorry for me after what happened at the reaping. They feed me bits and pieces of their dinner left-overs. I spend first couple of nights at Peeta's place. He lets me in late in the evening and then out in the early morning through the small window in his room. His elder brother who shares the room with us keeps silence that is worth a few coins per night. Then Peeta runs out of his meager savings, and his brother turns me in to their not so welcoming mother.

I stay at Delly's until my aunt drops by and claims me back on the evening of the same day that Haymitch Abernathy is back at the Victors', or in our case, the One Victor's Village again.

My aunt's eyelids are heavy and red. Her step is slow and shuffling. It is as if she has grown ten years older during those days I have not seen her. We do not speak on our way home. She almost pushes me inside since I linger on the steps unwilling to ever see my uncle again.

I think now that the very sight of me was the last straw. The girl whose presence in his house has been a nuisance from the start. The girl who has always been a weakling, and surely should have died either from the epidemic, or malnutrition. And yet she looks quite healthy and undamaged while his only son became a cripple... while his lovely blond daughter was left in the puddle of her own blood - and he had to watch a guy getting close to her, hitting her with a stone - he could not even shout a warning!.. while

Probably the only other person my uncle hates more than me is Haymitch Abernathy who apparently has not dried out since the day of the reaping. All the week long my uncle Rote curses and spits in the fireplace and wishes that damned drunk dead. Anyone would have taken better care of these poor children. They are no more than pigs led to slaughter for him.

\- 4 -

Finally one evening my uncle gets a scary-looking sharp metal stick from the butcher and heads off to the Victors' Village in spite of my aunt Nola's pleads and piteous wailing.

"Have you gone mad, Rote? He will injure you for life... Haven't we had enough of that with our Grita and our boy?"

I do not wait for them to stop quarrelling. I slip away through the back yard and run as fast as I can. Run all the way through the market place, up the hill, and past the Meadow. Looking over my shoulder and diving into the thickets so that my uncle won't see me on his way.

I have no idea why I am doing this. Yet, that big stick and my uncle's heavy fists scare me so much that I feel somehow obliged to warn Haymitch. I owe that to him after he stepped out for me at the reaping. Even though he is a victor and all that, he might not be prepared for a punch in the face with a sharp metal stick. He might even be drunkenly dozing off somewhere in his garden, and my uncle would then hit him right on the head like that guy did to my cousin.

It is already somewhat dark when I get there, and the two rows of silent houses with blind windows make me shudder - I still remember the story about the haunted place. Haymitch's house is huge with wooden window panes and wild bushes covering the porch the size of the Justice Building's front entrance. Haymitch is nowhere in sight. I have to bang on the doorbvery quietly at first, and with no response, louder and louder. I have to run around and bang on the windows as well and even shout because although I see the light behind the dirty curtains, no one comes out.

I finally give up and decide that if my screaming and thudding did not bring Haymitch outside, then surely my uncle will not have any luck either. I kick the door one more time and turn around to leave when it suddenly opens, and I see Haymitch clearly unhappy to be disturbed.

The smell from the dark passage behind his back is overwhelming. I have never smelt anything even close to this. Not even when I accidentally broke a rotten egg. I gasp, cough and involuntarily close my nose.

"What's all this noise about?" asks he. "Who the heck are you, and what are you doing here?"

'My name is Lia, sir," I haste to explain, "My uncle is Rote Rosany, and he is coming to you right now to beat you with a big metal stick."

"What the...?" and then he frowns as if remembering. "Oh yeah, right... So, what do you need? Decided to save your uncle the trouble and get at me first?"

I do not quite understand what he means and there is no time for explanation. As I look back, I see my uncle entering the village gates.

I am of course afraid of Haymitch, but my uncle frightens me far more.

"Please, sir," I whisper urgently. "I only came to warn you. Don't let him know I've been here! He is sure to beat the crap out of me."

I duck into the bushes under the porch and tremulously wait as my uncle approaches. The bushes smell terribly as if someone urinated or vomited in them, and knowing Haymitch, probably that is exactly why they are here for.

My uncle seems alarmed to see Haymitch out. Probably he was hoping to take him by surprise. He stops short and opens his mouth to say something, but Haymitch is first.

"Well, Rote, long time no see," he says lightly, almost pleasantly. "Nice evening, isn't it?"

"You bastard," my uncle fumes on. "How dare you when I... when all of them kids..."

He holds on his stick tighter and raises his fist.

"Rote," Haymitch's voice is still very calm and pleasant, but there is something very steely and cold in it."You've got to be kidding. Don't tell me you are going to use that on me because you won't stand a chance."

And even as he says that, my uncle rushes forward - I clasp on my mouth not to shout out. For a moment, they are one against another pushing and kicking, and then, somehow the stick is in Haymitch's hand, and my uncle staggers back and almost falls off the porch into my stinky bushes. He is breathless and very red in the face. He sits down on the steps and starts to cry. This is almost as scary to see as his previous rage.

"You bastard, " he keeps on repeating. "She was barely 18. Her last reaping... Couldn't you at least try?!"

Haymitch drops the stick at my uncle's feet. He looks very tired and old now. As if it were my uncle who just hit him hard in the chest and not the other way around.

"Believe me or not, I did try, Rote," he says quietly. "Yet one could go only so far. What more could I do - step into the arena instead of her? I wish that there was such an option."

My uncle flags, slowly gets up and stumbles on the gravel away to the main gates. He does not even look at the weapon at his feet. As he disappears off the hill, I carefully climb out. My dress is all dirty and smelly, and my legs and arms are scratched. Haymitch is still there gazing at where my uncle has recently sat. He takes no notice of me, but I feel it will be impolite to just leave. So I cough and then mumble.

"Erm, sir... I... I guess I'd go now? Have a good night."

"What? " he throws me a sharp look. "Are you still here?"

"Well, yes... " To tell the truth, I do not really want to leave. My uncle will again be mad at me, and I am already late for dinner.

I smile at Haymitch as brightly as I can and say as politely as I would to a school principal.

"It was very nice of you, sir, not to tell my uncle that I came here. I am very much obliged to you."

He watches me as if I were some strange bird speaking in a human voice, like those jabberjays they are talking about. I am embarrassed, so I blubber on.

"You have a pretty house. I think it's even bigger than our Mayor's. You must be very happy to have such a big house all to yourself"

Since I decide on being very polite, I do not mention that the house is also gloomy and stinks like a garbage can.

"Why don't you just get lost, girl?"

For some reason, my politeness seem to annoy him.

"I am Lia, sir," I remind. "And I also wanted to thank you, sir, for what you did... what you said for me at the reaping."

"What did I say you, weird one?" He seems to have no clue, or perhaps, he has already forgotten.

"My uncle wanted me to go instead of Grita," I say quietly. It is the first time I am talking with someone about my cousin since the day she died. "And you told him off... Then Ms. What-is-her-name from the Capitol read out some rule in her book, but you were the first to say..."

I feel my tears trickling down my cheeks, and I bend my head low so that he will not see them.

He just signs.

"This is too much for one damned evening. I need a drink."

He is about to get inside and close the door when I rush out after him and tug on his shirt.

"Mr... Mr. Abernathy, please... may I stay here, at your place?"

He looks at me as if not quite sure he has heard me right.

"Please," As I say this, I grow more and more confident because it seems not such a bad idea after all. I'd be better off anywhere than at my uncle's place. "I'd be cleaning your house and cooking for you. I can cook a nice omelet and even bake a lemon pie if there is lemon juice and some flour. Please... your house is so large, and I will be so quiet, you will never even guess I am here."

He wants to say something, but I shake my head, close my eyes, and patter on.

"I am not loud at all, not like other kids. I don't play loud games or anything. I just practice some dancing, but I don't jump and I don't need any music for this, so it's really nothing. And then I like painting, and I can paint your house, and..."

"Will you just shut up?" This time I cannot pretend I do not hear him.

He probably sees something in my face because he speaks softer now.

"Look, girl... Lia... Why don't you just go home? Whatever trouble you have with your uncle, it surely can't be that bad. Do I look like a baby sitter to you?"

That stops me in tracks. I step back and look straight at him.

"No, sir, and I am not a baby. Not after my first reaping," He frowns slightly as I say this. "It's just that... you somehow seem kind to me. I don't think you would ever want to beat a girl like me black and blue just because it is her and not your daughter that still lives, would you, sir?"

For a moment, he just stares at me, and then his glare hardens.

"I don't know," he answers curtly."Never had a daughter. Get away from here, will you?"

As I step back, he suddenly says.

"If you had any wits about you, you'd be staying away and hoping never to have to speak with me again. Not until you're in your twenties safe and sound, do you get that?"

That's when I get angry. I have been running that far to tell him about my uncle, and he just shoos me off without as much as a single nice word. Why is it so difficult for them adults to find at least a smile for me? What have I ever done wrong but trying to please everyone and be as quiet as a mouse?

"I don't care," I tell him. "I might not even stay alive until my next reaping. When my uncle is in a spell, he doesn't really watch where his fist goes, you know."

Haymitch Abernathy follows me off the steps. His fingers cup my chin and lift it, and as he does that I suddenly want to lean on him, even though he smells so strongly of liquor and sweat.

"Well, Lia, I have only one advice for you," he says. "Next time try to duck his blow. If you learn to be swift, that can come real handy once you get reaped... if you get reaped."

"Easier said than done," I sniff and quickly wipe off my face with the sleeve.

"Sorry, that's the best advice I can give," he releases me. "Now I really need to have a drink."

"Mr. Abernathy," I say gently.

"What else?"

"I'm sorry that my uncle called you bastard. You are not."

"Huh?" - he smirks. "He said I was not even worthy to be eating with the pigs, and she defended me so bravely. She said I was worthy to be eating with just any pig," Haymitch Abernathy mutters to himself and disappears behind the door.

I look around and seeing no pigs, I shrug my shoulders. Drunk people are plain weird sometimes.


	4. Chapter 4 Four years

\- 1 -

Over the next few years I indeed learn a couple of useful things while being busy with the household (My aunt's migraine prevents her from raising a finger and yet miraculously does not interfere with her screaming at me should I leave the oven on or the meat overcooked) and helping Rote around (You'd think after so much time he would learn at least to button up his shirt with his remaining fingers. Fat chance!).

How to duck my uncle's blow - I come to be talented at ducking and generally making myself invisible. This is a hard-won skill, and it costs me a broken nose not to mention occasionally dislocated joints, strained tendons, and bruises.

My uncle has changed after Grita's death. Earlier he just gave me half-hearted slaps whenever in a bad mood but now it is more like dark rage boiling inside him and spilling out each time his eye falls on me. He can neither speak to nor look at me without snarling. I never know for sure what might trigger him, so I try to stay away as I would from a rabid animal.

Grita was his favorite. His little doll. Each year on the day of her death my uncle Rote locks himself in with Grita's photos, and no one is to disturb him - not even my aunt Nola. We tip-toe around the house and listen to him cursing or crying inside their master bedroom. I could even feel sorry for him if it were not for the thrashing that I get first thing he comes out next morning.

No matter how much it hurts, my aunt never takes me to the merchants' doctor. It is always the apothecary, and since lately, I am usually sent to Katniss's mom since she is the apothecary in the Seam. I am not to tell her how I have got my wounds. Not that she asks any questions. Probably takes her guess about our family relations on the clues she sees on my face.

A quiet fair woman she is, so unlike her daughter. Her hands are warm and soft, and her voice is gentle. As Mrs. Everdeen stitches my cuts, I usually close my eyes and savor her care pretending she is my mom, and little Prim who plays with the herbs nearby is my sister. When Mrs. Everdeen sees me doing this, she always says, "I promise it's not going to hurt much". She doesn't know this is not about pain.

For my nose, my aunt did not take me anywhere at all. I spent almost three weeks at home, and the nose gradually healed on its own although it is a bit misshapen now. If I run my finger along the nose bridge, I can feel a small bump.

How to get out of my room in the attic after dark and back in the morning is another important skill to have. The only way is to climb on the roof through the attic window, and slide down or up the downspout, since my aunt usually locks me up for the night.

She starts doing this when she notices me washing my underwear soon after I have my first period at fourteen. At the same time, she also gets a full storage of bitter herbal stuff from the apothecary and makes sure I take some each evening before dinner. Her elegant explanation is, "Making sure you ain't going to shame us one day and get yourself knocked up."

I think though the remedy serves yet another purpose of decreasing their expenses on feeding me. After swallowing the herbs, the inside of my mouth tastes like garbage for an hour or so. No way I could eat my dinner no matter how hungry I am.

And eat my dinner is an absolute must. One might think merchants eat well but in our case, my aunt makes sure our food is just enough and of very low quality. All good products go either to our customers, mostly Peacekeepers, or into my uncle's and Rote's plates. My aunt and me share the scraps. Rote occasionally gives me something off his plate when my uncle is not looking but even with his contributions, I am almost always hungry.

I manage to occasionally steal bits and pieces from my uncle's store but it is extremely difficult since he has taken to locking away everything edible and keeps fuming about the thieves. I have no doubt if he catches me hot on the trail, he is going to hand me in straight to the Peacekeepers just like he would do with any Seam kid.

I sometimes envy the Seam people. For all their misery, at least all family eats the same dish. Then, they have the Hob where I am not really welcome because I am a merchant kid - an outsider. I venture in once or twice but people look at me weirdly, all except the woman they call Greasy Sae. She stares me up, sighs for no reason at all, and pours me a bowl of her soup. For free. When I come for the second time, one of the Peacekeepers shoves me off and threatens to tell my uncle where his niece spends her free time.

On a more positive side, I think my aunt Nola might not be entirely wrong in her suspicions. I go on practicing my dancing whenever I have chance - both Capitol and local styles. Boys line up to be my dance partners at the ever so rare parties we have here at District 12 and make sure I do not leave by myself after school. No more pinching or hair pulling now. Although sometimes when one of them sticks his tongue too far into my mouth, I cannot help but wonder... maybe, hair pulling is more preferable after all.

I have my first kiss on the night preceding my second reaping. I am only thirteen, and the boy, Erwin, is already fifteen, so he seems to me very mature and self-confident. That is until our somewhat desperate wet munching on one another's lips, and him snuffling, and his hands getting very hot.

I go out with Erwin mostly because I am so scared. I am scared out of my wits. Because of Grita, who should not have been reaped, I feel like I am to be revenged on. I kiss the boy and hope that would make me feel safe. It does help for some time.

Until he wants to unbutton my dress, and when I try to wriggle out, he blurts out that he has taken fifteen tesserae, that he has never tried this out with a girl, and the day after tomorrow he might not have another chance. If he says all this to make me feel sorry for him, he is terribly wrong. If anything, I feel betrayed and strangely vulnerable. So, I smirk and say that there are girls out there even in the arena, so he can still try his luck, and then, he can kill her right after.

He slaps me across the face, and I spit blood. This almost does not hurt. I am used to my uncle's heavy hand. When the boy starts his "So sorry... I didn't mean to... Don't know what's wrong with me... Must be the reaping", I only smile back.

Erwin is not reaped this year though. He is reaped a year after. I hope he used that extra year and did manage to make it out with a girl. I really do. Even so, I feel guilty as if now I am to blame for two deaths - Grita's and Erwin's.

That is why when another boy takes me out to the Meadow in the evening and pulls up my dress a week after Erwin is dead, I do not refuse him. They talk about pain but all I feel is slight discomfort and burning down there, and I desperately want to pee all the time he moves in me.

After I am back home though, I sit awake all through the night in my attic room. I cannot believe I did this, and what for? I cannot believe I am still me. One part of me even wants to come down, wake my aunt and cry on her lap even though she would probably just swear and stuff in me another portion of her herbs.

I end up crawling into Rote's bed and manage to fall asleep whimpering and gulping. The first thing he does when he wakes up early in the morning and finds me curled by his side is to yell and take away his blanket but at least he does not shove me out of his room. He never does.

I promise to myself that never ever again... but a few days later, one of my classmates sees me off after school, and we somehow end up at the back of the school barn. My second time is no better than the first. Yet, after we break up in a month or so, it seems to be no other choice but to make it out with a boy from the Seam. And then, there is another boy...

As time goes on, I find that I prefer dark grey-eyed guys from the Seam to fair-haired merchant boys. They are not so high brow and they never sneer at me after we fall apart. That is why at some point I hook up with Gale; although each time Gale pulls my dress off my shoulders, I keep looking out for Katniss with her hunting knife.

I think they might have a crush on one another. Otherwise, why would they disappear in the woods every now and then? Hunting? Well, I am not a hunter of course, but tell me one thing... Does it really take both people a whole day to shoot one skinny squirrel? I would guess no, otherwise Greasy Sae would have run out of her meat supplies for the soup. After two weeks of worrying that Katniss will find out about me and Gale, it simply becomes too much, and we quietly split up. No regrets from either side.

I do not even know how it happens, and why I cannot stop... Sometimes I think there must be something terribly wrong with me. I am barely fifteen but my dubious fame is spreading out fast like the choky smog from the Seam.

When I first hear my classmates tittering behind my back, I turn bright red and run out right in the middle of the lecture notwithstanding the teacher yelling at me. I cry in the dark and smelly washroom and do not get out until all students have left.

After a while though, I get used to this. I am okay with the fact that I will likely not have any girl friends at school, and I almost do not care what they all whisper about me keeping no boy longer than a week. When one of the teachers wrinkles her nose as if I stink and mutters something about nowadays teens being fast, I just give her a shrug and respond that people are all different. Some might be fast but others are absolutely retarded.

The only one who tries to defend me is Delly but somehow her plaintive, "Look, girls, Lia is not like that at all. I know her. She's so good and kind" stings more than their sniggering. That is why at Madge's birthday party I dance with Jero Freies who has been sweet on Delly. When I see the look in Delly's eyes which has more disbelief and apprehension than hurt, I know I have just lost it.

Peeta is often my only solace and the reason why the school does not become completely unbearable. We do not talk as much as we used to though. No time for that. Him toiling in the bakery right after school, me swamped by the household and store duties. Yet, it helps simply to have him there in the class. Knowing that his mom is no better than my uncle, and in some ways, he is even worse off than me because he loves her in spite of everything. He'd never raise his hand against her even though he can. He prefers to endure some of his fellow classmates' smirks "Hey, how does your mom feel today?" whenever he comes to class with a bruise.

Eventually though I quit stopping by Peeta's bakery. Peeta never mocks me behind my back, and he is such a goody-goody. That is the whole point of why I do not want to be friends with him anymore. Because I know my damned self only too well. If we go on chatting after school, I won't be able to help it but make a pass on him. Then, I will ruin everything. And I want at least one person in the district to remember me as something else but an easy-going never-to-refuse girl.

At first, Peeta acts as if nothing is happening, and we are still the same old friends even though all that I say now is "Hi, how are you?". Then, he gets the clue but still smiles at me sweetly and a bit sadly at the same time, and always allows me to copy his answers on the quizzes. Sometimes when I am late for the class and run in all flustered - with a dark spot showing somewhere on my neck - and kids upfront start sniggering, Peeta is the only one not laughing. The only one watching me as if he understands something about me that I myself do not even know. As if he guesses an answer to the question I keep asking myself.

Why do I keep doing this? What do I want after all these years? As I am fourteen, and fifteen, and sixteen? Oh, it is so simple, and yet so immensely complex and unattainable. I want for someone to need me.

I want to be safe so badly that during the week that precedes the reaping I am ready to make it out with just anyone - anyone no matter how ugly or old. Only not to stay alone. Not to think of Grita's crusty lips and blood dripping from her fair ringlets, or Erwin's shaking hands, or Daffo's slit throat, or any other of these familiar faces. Not to think that this year, it is going to be me - for sure!

Once I have someone holding me, it is not so bad. I almost believe it is going to be fine. I almost feel needed. That is why deep inside me I know I cannot quit. I cannot help but date these boys. Watching them kiss me with their eyes closed tightly. Never closing my eyes. Drinking in their hunger and need. The more of them want me the better. One boyfriend is not enough. He might die in the Games like Erwin, or be buried in the mines like Mr. Everdeen, or see me - like they all do - for what I am - a freak! - and leave me for a girl like Delly or Katniss.

\- 2 -

I do not see much of Haymitch Abernathy these years, and each time I meet him near the Hob, he looks more and more scruffy, paunchy and grey-haired. Strange as it might seem sometimes I almost envy him. I wish I could do the same. Not to care about what people say or think about me and send anyone who bothers me straight to the devil. Most importantly, to be able to punch my uncle in the face instead of ducking.

I do not try to talk to Haymitch on the street but for a few months after my first reaping I keep on visiting his place. Sometimes I even bring something with me and leave at his porch. It is not much but for a 12-year old me it seems like a decent deal. A piece of a stale lemon pie or a funny drawing made at school. First time Haymitch has a bad hangover and looks as if he might puke all over me and my pie. After that, he does not even bother to open the door anymore, and I know better than to knock.

I sit on his porch having no idea whatsoever why I am even doing this. It is not like he is even remotely friendly or sympathetic towards me. It is just that... He is the only one in the district who has noticed that what my uncle does is wrong. Other adults - teachers at school, the store customers, even the Mayor and Peeta's father - pretend they do not see or know. They either look away or keep smiling at me and telling me to be a good girl.

Then, there is something else. Nobody ever goes that way but me and the grounds-keeper. Even on holidays. Does Haymitch have no family or friends at all? Somehow I do not think anymore that large house of his is such a blast.

By the time I am fourteen, I quit coming to the Victors' Village though. As my memories of my first reaping grow dim, I go on dating my boys, sweating at the reapings, having wild dreams, and dancing in the Meadow when nobody is around. A simple girl with simple wishes. All that till the 74th Hunger Games...


	5. Chapter 5 A Big-Big Day & Its Aftermath

**\- 1 -**

It does not matter whether you are twelve or sixteen. Tesserae or not, you never get used to this sinking feeling and ringing in your ears as Miss Trinket plunges her manicured hand deep into the glass bowl, and the crowd gets so still you can hear the rustling of the paper slips. Later, friends and classmates will hold each other's hands, cry, or heave a sigh of relief (depending on who ended up on the stage) but at this very moment everyone is by themselves. Alone among the crowd. Each time is like your very first one while you are waiting for your name to be called and wring your hands - wring your whole heart - and bite on your lip.

And each time is like your very last one when someone else's name finally bell-rings in the air and you slowly and painfully realize that you have just won one more year of your life in this unequal fight with your fate. Fate, or should I say the Capitol?

Like everyone else in the crowd, I hear Katniss's little sister's name being twittered in Ms. Trinket's cheerful high-pitched voice. Like everyone else, I have very mixed feelings. Pure happiness - it's not me this time! Not me! - and poignant sadness since it is very obvious that this tiny Prim is doomed from the start.

Like everyone else, I gasp when Katniss volunteers, but somewhere deep inside I am not really surprised. This is Katniss I have gone to classes with for many years. Would she have any choice? Her mom would have gone completely nuts watching Prim dying, and for Katniss herself, it would have probably been too painful even to think of, save alone seeing on the live screen.

I have never been too keen on Katniss, and now she is the one to die. So pale, tight-lipped and straight on that stage that I want to slap Effie Trinket who cheers out for applause as if this is all the largest fun fair you could ever imagine.

When everyone holds out three fingers, I see Katniss's lips quivering ever so slightly, and suddenly she is no longer arrogant or brisk. No devil-may-care hunter. She is only my classmate whom I am never going to see again. I want to rush upfront and do something... I don't know... maybe, shield her so that no one could see Katniss Everdeen, the bravest girl in our school, trying to hold back her tears.

I am spared any risky actions since at this very moment Haymitch Abernathy begins his longest speech ever during all the previous Games taken together.

Then, I hear Effie chanting out Peeta's name, and - oh no! oh no! At first, I think I might have misheard still busy looking at Katniss but then, I see him slowly walking down the aisle.

I cannot help but make a move towards Peeta, and one of the Peacekeepers shoves me back. This is so much worse than with Katniss. Our gentle and friendly Peeta. All these long and hot summer evenings we played together at the bakery entrance. Free buns. Him smiling at me. Me always copying his homework. One of the few boys I have not gone into the school barn with. Perhaps, I should have asked him to. It was worth trying.

Delly starts crying and grips my hand. But I have no sympathy for her or Gale who now holds wailing Prim.

"Oh, for damn sake, why didn't Gale volunteer? He is older, he could protect her in the arena or something, and Peeta would have been safe," I whisper bitterly and bite on my knuckles, and then it hits me. He just can't go! It is as simple as that. Who is going to feed their families - Gale's and Katniss's - when both get killed?

I cannot stay still alongside Delly. I feel a desperate urge to do something. Anything, only not to be here and watch Peeta shaking hands with Katniss. Watch Effie Trinket who pays more attention to her wig damaged by Haymitch Abernathy's awkward hug than to the two kids in front of her.

Haymitch... My uncle's bitter voice rings in my ears, "If only we had a decent victor, not this drunk... " Wait... but it was him who spoke for me at my first reaping. He has actually even spoken on Katniss's behalf right now. Maybe, it is not all the same for him then? Maybe, he cares... in his own way.

I have an idea. It is only a snowball's chance but it is all I can come up with. I start to slowly move in the direction of where they have carried Abernathy's stretcher. Now that the tributes have been selected, the Peacekeepers do not prevent me from stepping out of the circle, especially since I hold a handkerchief by my mouth and pretend to be violently sick.

\- 2 -

I rush up the steps of my uncle's store. The front door is locked, and I know I will not find anyone inside. My uncle stubbornly keeps the store closed on the day of each reaping after Grita's death. I guess this is his way of quiet protest. I scramble around until I find the dusty bottle of old Capitol whiskey that my uncle keeps more for himself than for his customers. I wrap it in my sweater. Then, as an afterthought, I enter the kitchen and get some pills my aunt uses for her headaches.

As I venture into the door at the back of the Justice Building where I've seen them bringing Haymitch's stretcher and tiptoe along the corridor, I hear voices upstairs where all the Peacekeepers and tributes are now. Someone is crying. I think I recognize Madge Undersee's voice. It is good that there are so many people around. Relatives, friends, some cameramen. No one pays much attention to me. Yet, even if someone asks me what I am doing here, I have my answer ready. "I'm Peeta's friend. I came for him." It will be the truth as well.

A nurse is coming out of one of the rooms, and as soon as she walks round the corner, I hurry in.

Haymitch Abernathy is sitting on the chair looking quite shaken and surly as usual. Holding an ice pack against his head. He does not even look at me at first - probably, takes me for another nurse or apothecary apprentice - but as I carefully place my bottle onto his lap, his eyes widen.

"Real whiskey, not just home-made liquor? Girl, where have you been hiding before? Oh well, it's still like an hour until the train takes off. Just enough to pass the time pleasantly."

"Maybe, you'd better start with this and save whiskey for later?"

I get the pills out of my pocket, but he just washes them down with whiskey.

I am a bit worried.

"Are you sure it won't hurt? It's medicine after all. Not to be mixed with alcohol."

"After Ripper's stuff? No way anything can hurt," he squints at me. "Wait, I know you."

I do not explain where and how often we have met, so I simply say.

"I am your new tributes' classmate."

And then, I pause and bite on my nails. I do not know where to begin. Somehow it is very important for me that... it is different for District 12 this time. I know, of course, it is impossible for them to survive. But at least let them die having some hope. Not like Grita... Hit with a stone while craving for water.

Haymitch interprets my hesitation in his own strange way.

"So, you came to bribe me with this whiskey? For me to do what? Drug your classmates before they get to the arena? For them to die in peace and no pain?"

I shake my head. I suddenly forget all the words I have been hoping to plead with him in order to make him... indeed... do what? Instead, I just say.

"I came to wish you all guys luck... There is no point for me to try getting past all the relatives, and anyway, I am not even that close with Peeta since lately."

As he looks at me drunkenly-quizzically, I have this strange-strange feeling. I am suddenly sorry. It is not only Peeta I am thinking of. In two or three weeks, Haymitch Abernathy will step off the train alone as usual. Our life at District 12 will go on until the next reaping. Only without Katniss and Peeta. Without that boy who kissed me first and whose name I suddenly cannot remember right now. Without Grita and many-many others. Two more years, and - I can hardly believe this - it might be over even for me! Not for Haymitch though.

So, I surprise myself. On a whim, I bend over and hug him. He smells of stale liquor and sweat, and looks somewhat... disconcerted, weary, or just dead drunk?

I do not have time to reflect on that because at this very moment, the Head Peacekeeper enters the room, and stops in tracks at the sight of me.

"Time for your train, Abernathy," he says softly and gives me a queer look as I brush past him outside.

The last thing I hear is Haymitch hiccupping and mumbling.

"Whoa, life of a mentor is sweet indeed. Free whiskey and girls all over the place. Don't look so jealous, Cray, here, take a swig."

\- 3 -

The week before the Games start is, I think, the worst for us, people in the district who are waiting, and biting on their nails, and taking bets - yes, some are like that. This week of waiting is the worst for the relatives who, I am sure, cannot get a decent night sleep without seeing their beloved ones bleeding and dying in their dreams. I remember, my uncle Rote was pacing his bedroom every night after Grita had left, and my aunt Nola had hysterical fits every now and then, so I had to treat her with cold water and expensive sleeping pills.

Everyone changes during these days. People are more polite and caring about one another. It is as if we forget about our personal little quarrels and get together to be there for our tributes. Everyone tries to make up for little Prim and her mum. Even my aunt collects some groceries into the basket and asks me to bring these to Mrs. Everdeen. My uncle is a different matter, of course. I try not to show up when he is around. I am the remembrance about Grita.

I do the housework, help Rote with the customers at the store, and date Jero Freies rather half-heartedly. I even make peace with Delly. After Peeta's departure, she does not care about any other guy anymore, and I have to listen to her long and tearful list of the things she should have told Peeta, but did not.

When I get tired of her, I point to the screen and remark that Peeta and Katniss look quite contented with one another during the training sessions, and anyway, it does not matter since we are not likely to see them again.

Instead of getting angry or teary, this strange Delly only pats my shoulder and says, "I know you love him too. Let's just hope for the best, okay? If we give up, what's there to remain?"

You just can't win with some people.

"Love him too," I whisper to myself in my attic room. What does love mean though? Whatever I feel now, it was much worse that year when Erwin was selected a tribute. Still though this guilt gnaws on me. I cannot explain this, but it is like all these tributes die in order for me to go on living in a relative safety.

\- 4 -

Two or three days after the tributes have left, I am slowly walking back from the Meadow when Peacekeeper Cray crosses my way and greets me.

"Well, ain't that Lia? How do you do, pretty one?"

I am somewhat abashed that he knows my name, and even more so because he takes trouble to greet me. Then, he casually places his hand on my shoulder and asks me what plans I have for tonight and for my weekends in general. I am well-familiar with the rumors, and even if I were not, the way he talks and stares at me is just like the looks that I get from the boys who follow me into the school barn.

"Oh, I am so busy with all the homework and household, sir," I answer lightly. "You know my aunt has not been feeling well these days."

"Still, maybe, you can find half an hour or so,"he presses on. "A girl like you probably needs some dresses as pretty as herself. I could help you with that."

"Oh, I am okay, thank you, but I am not much for dressing up," I am trying to be nice because he is an adult and the Head Peacekeeper, and you never know, I might as well take care.

"You do like dancing though," he says, and now he basically embraces me, and his thumb is playing with my bra strip. "Well, what about listening to some good music at my place? Drinking some wine, maybe? Have you ever tried wine from the Capitol?"

I do not ask how he found out about my dancing but make a mental point that it might not be safe to go to the Meadow in the dark anymore. I try to duck, but it is not that easy since by now he is so close. His breath reeks of liquor not unlike Haymitch's, but for some reason, it seems much more disgusting. No people in sight on the street. He could have raped me right here for all they care.

"I am not that kind," I say.

"Really? Somehow I got an impression you were not against hanging out with all kinds of boys, as well as with older men, am I right?"

"You are mistaken, really..."

He kisses me, full on the lips, and his tongue slides into my mouth. I have an urge to bite on it but of course I do nothing of the kind. I just whimper ever so quietly and try to wriggle out. He lets go of me but no sooner than he gets a good opportunity to grope my breast, and smirks:

"Well, ain't you fussy? Am I worse off than Haymitch?" He finally releases me but not until he strongly pinches my behind. "Let me know if you change your mind, girlie. Don't waste your precious time on youngsters and old drunks who cannot give you full credit."

"I certainly will, sir... I mean I won't... I do appreciate your advice," I mumble and smile tremulously, although I'd rather give him a kick in the ass

On my way home, I think that maybe that is exactly what I like about Haymitch Abernathy. He seems to be one of the few men in this district who have never tried to hurt or date me.


	6. Chapter6 The Importance of Having Brains

**Author's note: **Thank you to all who have been following this story so far! Your support and patience has been great. My apologies for the long internal (things happen in life), and hope against all hope you are still out there. In future, the updates will be more regular (at least once per two or three weeks).

**\- 1 -**

When Katniss and Peeta are projected on the screen - staggering hand in hand, their faces pale and lips still blue from the berries - everyone on the square heaves a huge collective sigh of relief. Not joy. Not yet. That will come later. Now, we are all standing there stunned and drained of all emotions but exhaustion as if it were us hunched on Cornucopia all that freezing bloody night through. Listening to the Capitol audience applauding and to Claudius Templesmith's booming voice.

Like Effie's, his voice appears to me like a sentence of the inexorable blind fate right out from the school history textbook. This textbook says that Before the Dark Days people actually believed in something like that. They called it God and many other weird names. Believe it or not, they had no Capitol and no president Snow back then, so this God-something was their only source of supreme justice. I have always struggled defining God on the history quizzes though. I could never grasp this concept of all-capable power that does not crush but actually gives people hope and protection without asking anything in return. Yet, at the moment I hear Claudius Templesmith's "Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present the victors of the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games", I think I know how it feels to have the presence of God Almighty in your life.

All is over. I should be happy for them. In fact, yes, I am happy. Just like Delly who is now jumping up and down like a puppy by my side, crying and laughing at the same time, and I cannot make head and tail of what she is blubbering about. Something that has to do with Peeta.

Yet, this fragile happiness of mine has an unusual taste. The bitter-sweet and salty taste of poisoned berries and blood. Blood on my lip that I have been biting on standing here on the square for several long hours. Waiting for the arena back on the screen - the show was often interrupted with the ads and the show hosts beating on the odds soon after that big blond boy had fallen off the Cornucopia. Watching Katniss and Peeta against each other. And oh - her face as she swiftly aimed her arrow at his heart... His face as they both carefully shared the berries...

... Gale's face as the just proclaimed winners - start-crossed lovers - hold on each other as if their life depends on that, and the Capitol audience roars and applauds...

... And Haymitch Abernathy's face on the screen as the cameras swiftly glide from the brightly-colored Capitol crowd towards the District 12 team - the stylists, the all-smiles pretty escort, and the only one mentor...

\- 2 -

District 12 is in tumult. The camera men are swarming around interviewing everyone who is somehow connected to the winners. Even Delly gets to be on the screen as Peeta's childhood friend and blushes bright-red when the interviewer makes not-so-subtle hints about girl jealousy and rivalry. Little Prim runs to the train station and back ten times a day although she knows as well as everyone else that it is too early for them to arrive. Peeta's mum serves free cakes to everyone who stops by their bakery which in itself is even more unbelievable than District 12 winning the Games.

My uncle and aunt are very quiet, and so are some of the families of the dead tributes from the previous Games. I know exactly what these people are thinking about. Why is it only them? Why not my son-daughter-sister-brother? Until this day, winning Games has seemed impossible. Now it is a reality. There is hope. Boys and girls of my age and younger already plan on taking lessons from the victors once they come back so as to prepare for the next reaping.

The day when the victors are to arrive turns out to be not so lucky for me though. My uncle decided to wash down his bad mood and noticed that his whiskey bottle had mysteriously disappeared. Although I haven't said a word, I am naturally the prime suspect as it always is whenever something is wrong in this family.

By now I have learned how to predict my uncle's mood swings. His left eye starts twitching ever so slightly, and he clenches his teeth. I have heard from other people that before I had come to their house, he used to beat my aunt black and blue. If so, she should be grateful for such a convenient lightning rod as myself instead of acting a prude and locking me up at nights. One day I will break my neck climbing on that rusty downspout, and that will likely be the best end of all troubles for me and my relatives.

Yet, on this particular day I am somewhat distracted by thinking about the victors and about how I can whisk away another bottle. When I hear my uncle spitting fire right behind my back, it is too late to avoid his blow.

"Don't mess with me now," he pushes back Rote who rushes to help me back on my feet. "She well deserved it. She won't notice even if the thieves whisk away everything in the store. Too busy showing off at the square, eh? Happy for the Capitol-sponsored bast..."

"Rote, mind what you say!"

Usually I would have only covered myself or tried to run and hide but not today. Something feels different since the day our district was proclaimed the district of winners.

As my uncle tries to brush my aunt aside and mutters apologetically, "It's ok, Nola, I know what I'm doing. I ain't some reckless head, ain't I? ", for the first time in my life, I straighten up and hiss into his puffy whiskered face.

"That's 'cause you're a dumb head, ain't you?"

The sudden flash of almost physical pleasure I feel seeing him seething with rage and not being able to find an equally sharp response is almost worth the pain from his blows afterwards.

\- 3 -

In the evening, I head off to the Victors' Village. My black eye neatly powdered. My nicest dress (Grita's dress) the same color as the roses I managed to steal from my aunt's flower bed. A somewhat lame choice but what can I do if my uncle's liquor is no longer an option?

It is cold, rainy and somewhat windy. I am shivering while sitting on the familiar porch. It is so strange to see the other two houses down the street with the brightly lit windows. The Victors' Village has always been a haunted place. Well, not anymore. I even have to hide behind the ever-lush bushes because for some reason I do not want people to see me here once they come from the train station.

Katniss and Peeta are probably still somewhere along the way surrounded by their weeping and laughing relatives, friends and camera men when Haymitch Abernathy staggers up to the front gate.

I want to walk off the steps and greet him - after all, that is why I have come here for. Yet, something holds me back, and instead, I move further into the bushes and watch Haymitch as he slowly approaches the house. He is almost sober, or at least, less drunk than ever before. In that Capitol style fancy gray suit, and his hair neatly trimmed, he seems almost decent. You could almost take him for a Mayor, or some other authority from the merchant section if it were not for his swarthy face and Seam eyes.

He stops dead in his tracks as he notices me, but then, relaxes.

"Hey girl, is that you again?"

I do not know what I have expected. Perhaps that this time he will actually remember my name. Suddenly I feel tired. My wounded eye starts to throb.

"Here," I hand him the roses. "For you. Congrats."

Haymitch does not say anything. Nor does he deliver me from my bouquet. He simply stays on the spot not moving, almost as if not breathing. His face wet from the rain and grayish-pale in the twilight seems frozen. For a moment, he watches me with such strange burning intensity that I start blushing.

Then he sighs ever so slightly, shakes his head and frowns at me as if I were some stupid annoying fly buzzing in front of his nose.

"Thanks. I happen to have an allergy for flowers though. A bottle would have been much more welcome."

You bet. I bite on my lip and awkwardly place the bouquet behind my back.

"Sorry, I just wanted to... "

"Are you sure you are at the right door?" he asks and moves up the stairs past me. "Peeta's and Katniss's houses are way over there."

I smile at how he says their names. It is like they have known each other for ages. Like he actually cares. For some reason, it is painful. Nobody ever calls my name like that.

"I think they will be fine. Star-crossed lovers and all that," I say lightly.

"Well," he does not seem to get the clue. "If I were you, I'd still check their houses out. Now, will you excuse me, I am kind of tired."

"Mr. Abernathy, are you a bit happy now?" I ask feeling gooseflesh on my bare legs and arms. "I am asking because I have been very happy for the last few days. Yes, for Peeta. He's my classmate and all. But I also think you deserved their victory, and it is yours no less than Peeta's and Katniss's."

His mouth twitches.

"Sure, a very happy day it is. Now run and congratulate Peeta. Just dump away these flowers first. The kids have already got plenty of them. "

I make one last attempt.

"If you are really that tired, I will go now. But please let me come back tomorrow. No flowers, I promise."

"No way."

I think I know what he is going to do once the door is closed. Drinking and sleeping. And I know what I am going to do. Dating my boys. Getting beaten up by my uncle. All over again. As if nothing has happened. As if there is no hope. Neither for Haymitch, nor for me, nor for District 12.

"Okay," I say angrily. "I won't interfere. A nice life you have in your big house always full of visitors, surely too entertaining for any distractions like me."

"Girl, you are such a pain in the neck," he growls."What do you even want from me? Why don't you find someone of your age to talk his ear off?"

"Why don't you find someone to keep you a drinking company?"I retort. "Well, good night. Have fun kissing the bottle. Don't get overly aroused though. The bottle won't return your favors anyway."

This is very rude and teenage-like, but I am a teenager, okay, so I do not care.

To my surprise, Haymitch doesn't seem to mind. On the contrary, he roars with laughter which is somehow more offensive than his inhospitality and refusal to take my flowers.

As I brush the raindrops off my face and turn to leave, he takes me by my shoulder and asks.

"What's with your eye? Have you already wished good night to someone earlier today in the same special way?"

I gasp and cover my face. The rain washed all the powder away, and a nice sight I must be now with this red and black swollen slit of an eye.

"I... forgot to duck...like you taught me."

He does not remember anything, of course, so I blurt out everything. First, about ducking, then, my uncle and Grita, and God-Templesmith's voice, and hope... It probably looks funny. Him and me on the porch. He cannot get inside because I am on his way blubbering on. He is strong enough to push me aside though, and in the midst of my talking, I vaguely wonder why he does not do so.

I also wonder what takes Katniss and Peeta so long. Probably, the welcome reception at the Justice Building is not yet over because of the rain. Which makes me think...

"Why aren't you at the reception?"

"Because there always seem to be some beaten up kids around," he sighs and shoves me to the door. High time. I am freezing. Inside his house, it is dark, stuffy and as unbearably smelly as ever. I stumble behind Haymitch along the corridor into his kitchen.

For some reason, this house seems like our meadow on a grey November day. Bare. Drained of all colors. Bottles, some clothes and plastic plates rustle under my feet not unlike dry leaves and burn-out grass, and I almost trip over twice. Dirty blinds on the windows remind me of the fence wire. Same as with the wire, their purpose is not quite clear. To keep the outsiders out, or the owner in as if in prison?

Once in the kitchen, Haymitch turns on the light, takes a packet of ice out of the fridge and applies it to my eye. Then, he pours himself a glass of liquor.

"May I have some?" I venture.

"No, get your hands off this," he answers as strictly as a school teacher might and moves his bottle further away from me.

My dress is all wet, and I am shivering. Why is this house so cold and grim even in summer? No wonder Haymitch doesn't want anyone in.

I watch as Haymitch turns away and gives his undivided attention to the bottle. Almost unconsciously, I move one step closer. Yet another one. Then, I simply cling to his back and tuck my hands in his pants' pockets. I do not know and I do not want to think about why I am doing this. It just feels right. Warm. Almost safe.

He turns to me and shakes his head in disbelief.

"Look, girl. If you are cold, take a sweater or something out of that pile. Just don't start that on me. You're a kid for damn sake."

I feel my cheeks burning.

"Peacekeeper Clay does not think so."

"Oh, so he doesn't, does he? How come you are wasting your time here then?"

"Can't a girl have her preferences?" I ask and have to sit down again because I am suddenly very dizzy, and my ears start to ring. My uncle has a heavy hand after all.

"To have preferences one needs to have brains."

This condescending sarcasm makes me angry. I already have more than enough people scolding me.

"Yeah," I say bitterly. "I have no brains. Only boobs. Thanks for mentoring though."

I quiver inwardly waiting for his mockery, or worse a slap for my insolence. There is an infinite pool of possibilities now that I have exposed myself.

Yet, nothing comes. He watches me for a while frowning slightly and then stoops to light the stove.

"You are shivering like some plucked chicken."

I feel queer... No, I am not ashamed even though Haymitch Abernathy has been right all around. I have just made a pass at him. I guess it's a habit. Even with an old drunk. But that's not why I am sad. After all, I did not mean it. It was more like to give it a try and have a good laugh after, but he is unfortunately not the one to be fooled. So, what I feel is more like emptiness. Because yes, my life suddenly seems so empty even with all these boys. Because there is no one who would care no matter what they all say, and I do not really need any of them.

Haymitch brews coffee in a rusty pot, mutters something about stupid teens, and brings me the mug.

"I am sorry for trying to hug you," I decide that the only thing left is to put on my poker face. "I just wanted to warm up a bit."

He looks very tired as he replies.

"Do I look like a space heater? Come on, drink your coffee, get warm, and be off with you."

Haymitch sees me off when it is already dark, and the puddles on the porch are shimmering in the streetlamp light. I turn to him, and it strikes me again how lonely he must be in this house. Well, at least Katniss and Peeta will live close by to keep him a company.

"Leave it on," Haymitch says when I want to give him back his sweater. He checks on my black eye once more.

"Should be gone in a few days. When talking to people, do try to pipe down a bit if you don't want this make-up to be permanent."

"May I stop by again?" I say half-jokingly and half-seriously depending on how he takes this.

He answers me in a similar way.

"Sure, if you remember to bring liquor instead of flowers next time."


	7. Chapter7 Another Big-Big Day & One Night

\- 1 -

The next couple of months feel empty. Day after day has the same color. The color of grey coal dust and yellowish grass. Yet, it is not the emptiness of sheer boredom and monotony. More like the dark sucking emptiness of a cold drained well. Sometimes in the midst of my daily routine - looking after my migraine-driven aunt and moody cousin, sweeping the floor at the store, ducking under my uncle's random kicks or my ever-changing boyfriends' random kisses - I pause and listen as if waiting for something or someone to come.

There is something ominous hanging in the air. I cannot quite understand why. We are the district of two victors – the first ever in the history of the Games. Even the poorest Seam families get their portion of grain, so there is no threat of hunger or epidemic. In fact, things are going as well as it could be. Yet... when I first meet Katniss I get chills down my spine. She does not look at all like her old self. Yes, she has always seemed older than her age but now it is different. Her fine eyebrows are slightly raised as though she tries to appear more aloof and confident than she really feels. Her eyes are especially bright, but this is not the brightness of a girl head and heels in love. What's even more, after Katniss and Peeta return from the Victors' tour, I can definitely discern the dim glow of fear in the grey Seam depth of her eyes. I do not see her often though. Perhaps, twice or thrice. She rarely appears in the Merchants'section. The woods, the Hob, the Victors' Village, and Haymitch's house. All places where I do not usually stop by on a daily basis.

\- 2 -

A month or so after our victors have returned from the Games, Delly and me finally decide to visit Peeta's new place. No, not quite so. It is Peeta who finally decides to give in to Delly's eagerness.

So, here we are sitting opposite one another in this large sunlit room. The smell of freshly painted walls still lingering there. This is the largest and most splendid building I have ever been so far. Haymitch's lair does not count since all its magnificence was covered in dirt and mold the last time I'd seen its inside.

Delly probably has a similar opinion because her chirping breaks into our silence.

"Isn't it lovely, Peeta? Your parlour is the size of the school stadium. Now you could have wild parties here all on your own. It's going to be a blast."

Peeta vapidly agrees and stares down at the tips of his shoes. My gaze involuntarily follows in the same direction. Too late I remember that one of these shining stylish shoes is now covering a prosthetic device, and gaping at it means reminding Peeta of what he has been through, which is completely the opposite we have come here for.

Delly continues her twittering for quite a while almost uninterrupted. I bite on my nails and watch Peeta's friendly smile becoming more and more wane and strained.

When Delly cheerfully exclaims that it would be lovely indeed for him and Katniss to give a party for all former classmates, I barely restrain myself from pinching her. Every dog in the Seam knows about Katniss and Gale, and I still remember how Gale's knuckles became suddenly white on the day of the start-crossed lovers' first kiss on the wide screen.

"Well, Katniss is not the only light in his window now," I suddenly blurt out, "Peeta, you could have any girl in the district, a prettier one even, couldn't you?"

Now it's Delly's turn to glare at me as I blush realizing that what I have just said is hardly any better than her silly party proposal.

Yet, for some stupid reason, I angrily persist.

"Well, just because some girls are too dumb to know their own good doesn't mean you can't have some fun. Life is short after all, and like they say, you never know when a thunderbolt strikes."

I choke on my words as Delly watches me suspiciously. Perhaps, remembering about my school reputation and wondering if I bluntly offer my own sweet self as a poor substitute for Katniss.

Yet, the incredible thing happens. Peeta starts laughing. He laughs so hard his eyes become watery, and me and Delly exchange careful glances.

"Right you are, Lia," he gasps in between the fits of choking laughter, "A thunderbolt. Or a spear. Or... "

Delly steps next to him and takes his hand in hers.

I go on biting on my nails, turn away and try to keep myself busy examining the heavily embroidered tapestry on the opposite wall. I want Peeta to strike me hard. Anything to make this strange awkward awareness of my own complete uselessness go away.

Instead, I hear Peeta's steps behind me, and then he hugs me like he used to do when we were kids. When I look into his eyes, I finally see my old friend Peeta - not that start-crossed lover, a knight in the shining armor with a pale strained face.

He smiles at me.

"Thanks for your suggestion, Lia. And you too, Delly. Maybe, you are right, and having a party is not such a bad idea. Will both of you help me out and be my hostesses?"

Delly brightens up immediately and starts twittering something about invitations.

Peeta's arm is still around me. On a whim, I close my eyes and rest my head on his shoulder as I sometimes do with my cousin Rote.

"What a goddamn fool she is," I whisper thinking of Katniss and hoping he'll take my words on Delly's account.

\- 3 -

When one blizzardy-white winter day the new updated and perfected version of Peacekeeper Cray suddenly appears at the doorstep of my uncle's store, I think of Gale's bloody back and instinctively hide behind the counter. I listen to my greenish-pale uncle stammering and again and again reassuring Mr. Head Peacekeeper that he does not have – and has never had – any illegal goods or under-the-counter trade – yes, they are welcome to see for themselves – he has no secrets from the authorities; he has always been a great admirer of the President's regime. When Cray number two confiscates the home-made liquor storage and reads off the list of rules and taxes, it becomes clear that unlike old Cray, this man truly means business.

I am still watching him and trying to figure out whether this might be for better or worse, when someone's hand grabs and pulls me out of my shelter. A young burly fellow in the uniform, fresh from the Capitol – one of those who arrived with the Head Peacekeeper.

"Hey you, what are you trying to hide down here?"

It is obvious that I am not hiding anything but the guy seems to enjoy seeing my fear. I discern a faint smile under his mask as he twists my elbow. I think I know this smile. I've seen it before on some of my boys' faces when I agreed to let them see me off after school. Usually those boys were the type who would later brag about making it out with me.

"Leave the girl, Aelius," says his boss drily, "These are the merchants, not the Hob people. Learn the difference, will you?"

As the peacekeepers make towards the exit, and my uncle rushes forward to open the door for them, it appears to me that this difference would be very small from now on.

\- 4 -

I was correct. Rules become much stricter for everyone. While people from the Seam try to make their ends meet now with the Hob gone and winter in full swing, the merchants are worrying about the increasing taxes and restrictions. My uncle secretly stores away some cash and goods. Delly's father has to temporarily close down his business until he gets the clearance – whatever that might mean.

My evenings are long and boring. No one can go out after dark anymore without a special permission. If they catch you, you will probably be thrown in jail. Of course, one can always find the way but my boys do not want to risk after they saw what had happened to Gale.

I gradually manage to get on half-friendly terms with Aelius, but I still need to be careful, so very careful to gain even a little of his half-hearted rather derisive sympathy. I flutter my eyelashes, watch him in fearful admiration, and occasionally drop questions-hints ("Is this gun really as powerful as it seems?"); in other words, I act as much a light-headed doll as I can. My classmates frown upon me. Delly's eyes are full of silent reproach, but I have my reasons. In a year, once I hit eighteen, my uncle is bound to kick me out. There is no one here to protect or help me, so I must seek protection on my own – just in case – and Aelius seems a better option than old Cray.

\- 5 -

On the day when President Snow announces the rules of the 75th Hunger Games, I am serving tea and cupcakes to my uncle, aunt and Rote in the living room. As I listen to our puffy-lipped president's speech, I get so entranced I spill tea on the table cloth. Fortunately, no one notices because at this moment he proclaims that nobody is invincible, and my aunt gasps faintly, and Rote swears loudly. Everyone is silent for a while. I start moving the cups to wipe off the liquid, but for some reason, my hands shake as if I am having one of my cousin's post-traumatic seizures. The cups rattle. That is when my uncle chuckles. It is a quiet good-humored chuckle as if he has just heard a good joke. We all turn to him in amazement, and he claps his hands.

"Well-done, Mister President, well-done... No one is invincible, ain't them? Well, at least now it's fair, yeah. Why should they live after killing off other people's children?"

"Rote!" my aunt almost screams, and for the first time in my life, she is angered against her husband, "Isn't that enough for you? After all these years? What are they to be blamed for?!"

"For staying alive," my uncle's face is very stern and even solemn now, "For being able to live with that blood on their hands."

That's when I understand that although I might be a primary object of my uncle's dislike, it is not me he truly hates.

\- 6 -

When I finally get to the Victors' Village after waiting for my aunt and uncle to stop quarrelling and fall asleep and then waiting for the night patrol to pass the road uphill, it is well past midnight. The village is moon-lit and quiet. Peeta's and Katniss's houses still have lights on, and no wonder.

I first pause at Peeta's house and almost knock on the door, but at the very last moment something makes me change my mind. I tread on trying not step into the light.

As I walk past Katniss's house, I see her slowly emerging on the road from Haymitch's place, and I quickly hide behind a tree. She is walking very strangely, and ... is that really a liquor bottle clasped in her hand? Again, I want to step out and talk to her. Where the heck is she going alone so late and so apparently drunk? But she turns to her house, and Gale throws the door wide open, so I figure out they will manage somehow.

I wait till both of them get inside and then rush to Haymitch's place. I know it is pointless and pathetic of me. He will probably not even open the door. But this is much stronger than my reasoning. I simply need to see him. Not Peeta or Katniss. Him.

Especially after what my uncle has said today, and I realize that other citizens might have the same opinion. Maybe, not about Katniss and Peeta who are too young and have not had a chance to be anyone's mentors yet. Yet, with Haymitch it is different. I've heard people saying things. Not everyone in the district easily forgives deaths of the 46 teens. I am sure that tomorrow people are going to hope it is him reaped and not Peeta, and somehow it rubs me the wrong way.

Especially because the memories of the tributes from the past years are still very vivid. That muscular guy from District 2 who strangled a wolf with bare hands. That heavily built girl who cracked the skull of the boy from the same district with her...

I have not been here for a good while. The porch looks different because the bushes are neatly trimmed now. I definitely recognize Mrs. Hawthorne's work. The kitchen window is wide open, so, after a momentary hesitation, I climb onto the sill. It seems easier than knocking and calling out.

It is very dark inside and by the faint light of the street lamp, I barely discern Haymitch at his kitchen table. Very drunk. Playing with a big sharp-looking knife.

He swiftly turns around, and I duck instinctively. Yet, he seems to recognize me.

"Well, isn't this house some damned youth hostel this evening?" he mutters, "What do you want?"

What do I want? This is a very good question indeed. Why do I keep coming and bugging him? Why am I here today when I am least welcome? Is it really my childhood friend Peeta whose fate worries me? Until President Snow's speech, I would have not hesitated to say "yes". Yet now... it is somehow different.

He watches me tiredly and indifferently.

"Since you're here anyway, let me ask you another question. What team would you prefer to join? Save-Peeta team or Sorry-Peeta-on-this-quest-our Katniss-is-the-best team? Or perhaps, Haymitch-go-get-yourself-drowned-in-the-bottle team?"

I cannot make head and tails of this drunken blubbering. It is more the tone of his voice than the actual meaning of his words that makes me jump off the window sill - very quickly so as not to change my mind. I run across the room and throw my arms around Haymitch's neck. I smell familiar liquor and unwashed clothes, I hear his heart beating and hold on for my dear life.

"Now... what's it all about?" he asks in a slurry somewhat bewildered voice.

"It's you I came for," I exhale and start bawling, "I don't want you to go there! It will be so unfair."

As I say this, I suddenly know it is true. Yes, I do care about Peeta and Katniss like everyone else in our district but there is much more to that.

He sighs and tries to pull me off himself.

"Shouldn't you better worry about your classmates?"

" Oh, but that's two sides of one coin," I am not capable of explaining myself clearly. It is just that... what sort of life will it be for him if Katniss and Peeta die

He turns away from me, gropes in the semi-darkness for another bottle and misses.

I manage to catch the bottle before it smashes on the ground and hand it back to him.

"Please let me stay here. Only until morning," I whisper, "I feel so worthless. So much of an outsider. I feel like I should be doing something... and I can't do anything."

As he still doesn't respond, I do something I have never done to anyone in my life. I take his hand, and I kiss it - kiss these rigid rough-skinned fingers - and as I do so, he flinches and mutters indistinctly, "What a waste of…."

I try not to listen. It's that look in his eyes that makes me persist. Perplexity and weariness. And something else flickers there. Something very subtle ... Or is it just because he is so drunk he can hardly hold his eyes open?

"Please," I keep repeating meaninglessly, "Please..."


	8. Chapter 8 Things Missed Since Last Night

\- 1 -

There is only one thing I can do - sometimes I think that might well be about all I am good for - and I am not even sure Haymitch is into it. It is not me - my 'please', my body, or that hurting lump inside my chest - that wins in the end. It is white liquor. The President's speech. Drunken Katniss. This huge, empty, grave-like house late in the night.

Somehow, we slowly make it to another heavily blinded room across the kitchen - I cannot quite decide whether it is Haymitch leading me or me bracing him against the fall. As we stumble onto the sofa though, I make up my mind to believe in the former. I am reaching out in the dark - just like I am used to - yet, it is somehow different this time with this man. I am surprised that my hands start to tremble, and I am suddenly clumsy. It would have been so much easier if I could only see his face, if he would only kiss me or call me by my name. Anything that would let me know that I exist for him now. That he knows it is me - not just a faceless antidote against the night and upcoming games.

But then, it does not seem to matter. I hear him sigh in mock exasperation and chuckle.

"Sorry, girl... My train won't leave the station. Don't take it personally."

It is strange but I do not want him to stop. I would rather lie here against the warm and sleepy heaviness of his body and breathe in stale liquor. So, I ask hastily and confusedly, "Is there anything you want me to do to...?"

He does not respond, and I cannot really do anything on my own because he has flattened me down. I am waiting while my legs and arms are getting numb, and his body is getting more and more heavy. It is only when I hear him snoring into my ear that I understand that - for better or worse - there will be nothing else tonight.

\- 2 -

I do not know how long I have been staying like that. Staring into the dark. Listening to Haymitch snoring away. My dress all wrinkled. My chest aching for I can barely breathe.

I must have finally dozed off because the next thing I remember is opening my eyes and seeing the dim grey light through the hole in the curtain. I hurt all over - especially my shoulder that Haymitch has been using as pillow - and I desperately need to pee, so I absolutely must get up.

As I slowly pull myself off the sofa, Haymitch moves uneasily and mumbles something incoherent. Then, suddenly, he startles and is up before I can even blink. His eyes wide-open and unseeing. In a wink, I am thrown off the coach and duck under the table as he yells and crushes all around in an attempt to get at me. Too scared and confused even to cry out, I hold on to the chair that prevents him from getting under the table. I hold on for my dear life. My heart pounding. He pulls me out with such force that I bang my head on the table corner , and everything swims in front of my eyes. I stare into the swirling depth of the blind madness in his eyes, at the knife in his fist, and finally manage to wheeze, "It's just me, please...Don't kill me..."

These words seems to open the magic door for me. He slowly releases me and looks into my face as if painfully trying to remember.

"Oh, it's you, girl," he says finally.

"Yes! Yes!" I exhale in between crying and gasping for air, and thinking of one thing and one only: how to find the door and run away from this all this nightmarish darkness - in this house and this man's eyes - and never-ever to come back.

He is sleepy and still very loaded. I can see that in his confused face and clumsy movements as Haymitch falters, lowers his knife, and stumbles back onto the sofa. Clearly having no idea what is going on, and what I am doing here.

This is clearly my chance to get out whole and alive. But I don't jump on it. It is what he does next that disconcerts me completely.

Reaching out. Wetting the cuff of his shirt with the remnants of liquor. Using the damp cuff to gently wipe blood off my brow.

"It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you now," he mutters, and a strange warm feeling suddenly fills me up.

I am still trying to find the name for this feeling while Haymitch shuffles away to the restroom and returns with his hair and face wet and dripping, and the zipper on his pants undone.

I am trying to avoid his eyes as he scowls at me and asks, "Now, could you please remind me what exactly I've missed since last night?"

I swallow hard and lower my head. The last thing I want is to explain what has happened and how I came to be here. The lump on my brow hurts, and I am dizzy for the recent fear and lack of sleep. So, I stare down onto my lap and shrug my shoulders hoping he would not press on for more.

He watches me with such intensity that I start to blush and bite on my nails.

"I need to head back home now... My uncle is going to beat the crap out of me."

He frowns and nods. It is funny that he does not seem in the least relieved now when it is clear I will not make a scene. As he sees me off, on a whim, I turn and smile at him tremulously.

"I'll see you around, won't I?"

He shrugs and bangs the door shut.

\- 3 -

I am lucky. It is just after 8 am and there are no customers at the store when I tip-toe in. I quickly put on my aunt's old apron to cover my wrinkled dress, throw the shutters open, and begin cleaning around. The morning hours are always my shift since my uncle likes to watch the 9 o'clock news while sipping his coffee, my aunt usually cradles her migraine, and Rote prefers to sleep in late.

Since there is no one here, I venture quietly turning on the radio set. The husky voice of the Capitol singer. The faint smell of spring blossoms and new grass seeps through the usual Seam dust into the open window. When I brush a strand of hair off my brow and occasionally touch the bruised lump, I again get that warm feeling inside me. I smile at I don't know what and close my eyes, and the Capitol singer's soft blues creeps into me and vibrates deep down my belly. My dress is fluttering and rippling in the draft.

The draft... I stop shortly when I hear the door creaking behind me, and as I turn around, there he is. Standing at the threshold. The gun at his side, and his mask pulled up. How long has he been staying like that? Watching me curiously. His pale blue eyes are expressionless. For a moment, I duly wonder why his smooth handsome face and his broad shoulders have never appealed to either me or any other girl from our district. Is it because he is a Peacekeeper? Or because he looks so different from the men here? Or is it because of the way he always holds his gun - as if it all were a game and he were only too happy to try it out? Still though, I tell myself, he hasn't yet hurt anyone...

"Good morning, would you like to..." I stammer, and he interrupts me.

"Where did you learn to dance like that?"

I can feel the flush raising up my neck. Everyone around knows I am a good dancer. I have always been the first at our district evenings. Yet, this particular kind of dance is only for when I am alone. And now, this stranger from District 2 has seen me through and through.

"I'd say you are a match to those girls at Capitol parties," Aelius drags out his words but I can tell there is a bit of genuine appreciation in his condescending tone. While I am looking for a pack of cigarettes that he has requested, I know his eyes are still on me. Somehow, that sends chills down my spine, and I wrap my aunt's apron tighter around me, and try not to turn my back on him.


	9. Chapter 9 Simple & Down to Earth

\- 1 -

In the next couple of months, I almost forget that strange night at Haymitch Abernathy's place. After a while, it becomes so fuzzy and dreamlike in my memory that I honestly believe I have made most of it up including that mixed feeling of gnawing fear and fleeting languor.

Once or twice I meet Peeta at his parents' bakery. This new look of determination and sharpened cheekbones make him strangely aloof. As he briefly updates me on their training sessions, it is as if he is not really there in the bakery but already on his way to the arena. As if he has decided upon something, and that decision put an invisible wall between him and the rest of us.

Delly often goes to the Victors' Village to chat with the tributes, Peeta in particular. She giggles all the time as she tells me about Haymitch forced into sobriety and calling Peeta every name under the sun during their every day morning runs. Gale is obviously a regular Sunday guest, and even Madge Undersee pays them a visit or two. It would have been only natural if I went too; yet, each time when Delly invites me to accompany her to the Village, I find a reason to stay away.

At night, I lay still in my bed. For the first time in my life feeling no need of slipping out and finding myself someone to be with. For some reason, I cannot sleep very well and sometimes spend hours peering into the darkness of my bedroom in the attic. Thinking of nothing. Letting a calm warmth wash over my body. Calm is not the right word though. I feel myself more like still water in the pond. Waiting for a stone to disturb the smooth surface. Waiting for something to happen.

During the daytime, my anxiety is getting worse. Each time I meet Aelius - him saying next to nothing but his sharp eye always on me - I feel a jolt and cold sweat running down the back of my neck. His eyes, his posture, and the way he holds his gun seem to tell me that this peaceful interlude is only temporary. That the only thing that is real is the ever-lasting games in which all of us are the tributes, and there will be no winners. Not even our President.

\- 2 -

I finally go back to the Victors' Village on the very last evening before the reaping. It is not really any conscious decision of mine. It is rather something I absolutely must do in order to be able to live with myself. The rainless and windy spring has just turned into the scorching and windy summer. As I walk down the road, the clouds of grey Seam dust swirl at my feet. I do not meet anyone on my way except Aelius and his mate. They frown at me, but I twitter something about Katniss and her wedding dress, and us being best friends ever, and eventually, they let me go with their usual warning about the curfew.

The other peacekeeper walks on but Aelius does not follow him at once. First, he touches the back of my neck and gives it a light squeeze. I cannot help but think about that little whiny dog we kept at home a few years ago when Grita was still alive. Rote used to lift it by its scruff and carry around. I giggle nervously and briefly wonder if Aelius is going to pull me off the ground as well. He seems strong enough for that. No, he only gives me a cuff and says with his usual half-admiring half-mocking grin,

"You're in my debt now."

"Sure, we all are," I mumble and retreat slowly trying to move backwards while his eye is still on me. I don't like it when he watches my behind. Most boys do the same, and it is ok with me, but he is an exception.

\- 3 -

When Haymitch opens the door, I see the change in him at once. He is more sober than I have ever met him, although it apparently costs him a lot. He seems somewhat thinner than last time, and his hand is shaking slightly as he squints and shields his eyes from the setting sun. His manner is very matter-of-fact and brisk.

He says, "Oh it's you, girl," as if he'd much prefer to be mistaken.

"Good to see you too," and then I add somewhat bitterly, "I have a name though."

"I know your name," he scowls at me, "Come on in."

I start walking in the direction of the kitchen but he motions me down the corridor. I guess the room he takes me in was designed as his office but it doesn't seem like it has ever been used for its original purpose. It is much darker than even his blinded living room. It is also very bare. The walls have been stripped of everything from shelves to wallpaper, no carpet on the floor, only a desk, chairs, something that looks like a small sofa, and some boxes.

"Thanks for keeping me a company," he says stepping aside so that I could enter, or rather stumble in the semi-darkness, "Would have been a bit lonely otherwise. Usually those two are always around, but this evening is for their families."

I look up at him in surprise. His face seems quite straight as if he truly means what he has just said.

I make it for the light switcher on the wall but Haymitch waves me off.

"There is no electricity in this room."

As he lights something on the desk that looks like a battery lantern, I can see some wires sticking on the wall next to the electric plug and up on the ceiling. I wonder briefly that of all rooms in this huge house he has brought me to this one, clearly in the midst of some renovation. I decide not to ask questions though not to be kicked out too soon.

He shows me to one of the chairs and takes a seat on the sofa. It is unusual to see him without his bottle, but I do not say so of course.

"So, how is life?"

"You aren't really interested to know, are you?"

"Well, in fact I am," he says slowly, "I believe you've been around for quite a while. So, a few things need to be clarified."

"Like what?"

"Like how old are you?"

I don't like this new Haymitch. His dry interrogatory manner. I would have preferred his usual drunken sarcasm.

"Obviously not old enough," I finally answer, "I'm Peeta's classmate if you remember."

He just scowls and shoots his next question at me, "Okay, so what brings you here again, and yet again?"

And as I don't answer this time and hang my head guiltily, he says very casually, "Well, since you apparently do not wish to talk, I'll make it easier for us both. You are almost of age, and your uncle's family no longer wants to keep you, or rather you want to get rid of them and start on your own life. Your options are poor unless you wind up with some merchant's son which is unlikely in your case. Do I really need to give you the reason why? I'm sure you know that better than myself... So, here you are looking for another way out which is actually quite smart and doesn't surprise me at all - believe it or not, you are not the first to come here with similar intentions. Yet, there is a slight difference. You know that I am not my old drinking mate Cray. Why didn't you simply ask for what you need? After all, don't they say that honesty is the best policy?"

Again, I look up at him. He is watching me back intently. What is there in his eyes? Concern? Annoyance? Contempt?

This is probably the longest speech I have ever heard from Haymitch, and everything he says rings so true that I am not even offended. He has almost explained me to myself. Almost...

My mouth is so dry that words come out more like a whisper.

"You are right," I say, "Like you said, there is a small difference though."

I can say nothing more. My throat tightens. So, I kneel and lay my head against his knee.

This is all I can do. Staying like this, in my aunt's faded dress. My hair tangled. The ever-lasting pattern of old and new bruises on my forearms and wherever my uncle can reach. Simple. Down-to-earth. Done with and wasted. Shoo me away now for all I care.

He sighs, "That's a fine kettle of fish. Just what I need right now."

As I raise my eyes, I am taken aback. There is a barely constrained rage in his tired face. This is when I know that it is definitely time for me to clear off once and for all. I've apparently just made the biggest blunder in my life. That night in the living room misled me into thinking ... what? That he might need me? The District 12 victor who - unlike Cray - did not even have to give money to girls to sleep with him back in those days when my aunt was young.

I recoil and stand up. I am confused, ashamed, and a little scared of his hostility.

"Sorry," I whisper, "My bad. Please don't be angry."

That's when something strange happens. His eyes suddenly soften. He pulls me back next to himself.

"I'm not angry," and he touches my brow. Gently. As he did on that night, "It's not about you, okay?"

Oh no... As Haymitch does this, suddenly my mind goes completely blank. I am like that little dog of ours that used to wiggle its tail, summersault, and even wet itself whenever me or Grita petted it. I do not wet myself or summersault, of course, but I want to do so many crazy things at once. For instance, I would have so liked to hold onto his hand and nuzzle against it or lean against his shoulder.

I slowly breathe in. And out. Now it's the time. What am I to lose after all?

"I..."

What is it that I am trying to say? 'It's not about money.' 'I need you.' 'I feel safe with you.' 'I will miss you'... I want to explain, to make him understand but I am tongue-bound. Helpless. Hurting all over.

So, instead, I act the only way I know.

Quickly - so as not change my mind - I pull this old dress off over my head. Apparently way too fast. So fast that the dress button is caught in my hair and then...

I am stuck. I can't believe it. Simply stuck. I blindly twist around and tug on my dress but the only way I can finish off my graceful undressing is by ripping my hair out.

"Now, scalping yourself isn't the best way to turn a man on," I hear him chuckling - not unkindly - and then, I feel his fingers disentangling my hair.

When I emerge again, I am sweaty and hot from embarrassment. As if to make things worse, Haymitch grins and says, "I wonder who deceived you into thinking I'd even live up to your high expectations..."

There is only one thing left to do. I shoot off the sofa and make it for the exit. He roars with laughter when I almost bump into the doorjamb, then, catches up with me, and pushes me back into the room.

"Oh, these teens brought up on soap operas straight from the Capitol," he mutters, "Where do you think you are going now during the curfew? Do you want the peace keepers snatch you and leave some more marks on your pretty face? Hey, stop trying to scratch me, will you?"

I do worse than scratching. I bite on his hand holding me flat against the wall. I tug on his shirt. I kick. I wheeze meaningless angry words.

"Let me be. Whatever... What does it matter to you? You never care. You booze-crazy freak. What am I supposed to do now? Tell me, you Mister Smart Know-It-All, what am I to do tomorrow if they take you instead of Peeta?"

I hate Haymitch Abernathy at this very moment. Because he surely does not remember my name even though he says he does. Because he does not need me at all.

Yet, even more I hate myself for not being able to reach out across that dim haze of liquor and those dead girls and boys who will never-ever grow to be eighteen, and twenty, and thirty, and who are forgotten by everyone - even their friends and sweethearts - but not by their mentor.

For disgustingly hoping that it is not him but my old friend and classmate Peeta who will be dead in a week from now. For secretly feeling happy that it is not going to be me - not me again - this year.

Then, I find myself laying on the sofa with my mess of hair and bare skinny legs. Him still holding me. Watching me as if calculating something. As if he didn't care a bit about what I've just screamed out.

Even his voice is the same. Quiet, slightly mocking, indifferent.

"When you're done with throwing a fit, I'll tell you what to do tomorrow and hereafter. Can you do what this booze-crazy freak is going to ask you about, not to bug him with questions, and most importantly, not to wag your tongue to anyone? If you like, think about it as my last will, will you?"

My tears dry out. I sit up straight.

"What is it that you need me to do?"


	10. Chapter 10 Of Dogs and Men

**\- 1 -**

"What is it that you need me to do?" I repeat expectantly.

"Whoa, not so eager!" yet, I can tell Haymitch is pleased with my obedience and sensibility, "Say, are you on the first name basis with that Hawthorne boy?"

"Gale? Sure, but why?" I cannot help but be surprised. Why would he talk about Gale? Was it possible that Katniss found out about him messing around with me and told Haymitch? Not really a thing she'd care to discuss with her mentor while preparing for the Games, and it was a long time ago anyway, but what might be another explanation?

Haymitch scowls at me,

"Yes, Gale. Now, listen here, I don't like repeating myself twice, especially when I'm sober."

I nod quickly, and he goes on slowly and quietly as if explaining things to a child, "I know some of the new Peacekeepers seem to like you. At least, one of them. That gorilla-like fellow... No, don't you start all over again. I am not interested to hear more about your love affairs."

"But that's not true. I am not in love with him!" the injustice makes me forget everything about being sensible and obedient.

"Whatever. Girl, darn you, can you please listen to me?" Haymitch says urgently, and his face becomes so mentor-like that I go against my hurt self-esteem, fall silent, and patiently fold my hands on my lap.

"I'm not advising you to go after him on purpose. However, I'm not advising you against going out with him either if he asks you to - and he will, that far I can tell. I know what people from two are usually like: if he's set some goal for himself, he's not the one to back out. You'll only get yourself in trouble if you refuse, or you can actually play smart and gain some benefit for yourself and the rest of you folks if you play his way. So far so good?"

"Yes, I am to stick to Aelius," I gulp angry tears. Little he cares about me if he makes this suggestion, "What about Gale?"

"Hang on. We are getting there. Don't do anything crazy, do you understand? Don't try to spy on Aelius or his squad, and don't you dare bugging him with any smart questions. Just be your usual self, okay?"

"Boobs, smile, and birdlike brain? Okay."

My awkward attempt at being ironic is wasted on him.

"Glad you've got the point. Yes, your usual self. Just a bit more mindful of what's going on, and most importantly, how soon. If your gut tells you something is not quite how it is supposed to be..."

"Like what?"

"Now, girl, haven't they taught you any basic rules of self-protection at school? Like anything. Too many Peacekeepers in one place, or none of them is around when they are supposed to be there. Times of curfew get changed. Water tastes differently. Strange smell. Birds stop singing. Aelius doesn't let go off his wireless even when you two are making out. Am I to write down a list for you, or you'll finally switch on your brain?"

"I hear you," I say dejectedly. No longer hurt. Just a dull pain of foreboding stabbing my chest.

"Now, Gale. This fellow is the only one among you locals who knows his way around. So, in case you smell trouble, stick to him. Let him know as soon as possible. Do whatever it takes."

"That would be a bit hard to do if I am making out with Aelius."

"If you want to stay safe, you'll find the way," he simply says and then falls silent.

"Is that all?" I ask confusedly.

He watches me as if I have disappointed him bitterly.

"Well, obviously, if on your way to safety you manage to take one or two other kids with you, all the more kudos to you. Do not overreact though while trying on the role of heroine."

"Obviously, I am not a heroine," I retort, "Not like your precious Katniss."

"No, not like her," he agrees calmly.

I want to argue on but something stops me. Some gnawing feeling.

"What is it that is going to happen? Please tell me."

"Nothing. Don't bother with that."

"Then, why..."

He rolls his eyes, absent-mindedly fumbles around the desk, spreading his fingers wide as if groping for a bottle of liquor that is not there, of course.

"You promised not to ask questions, didn't you?"

"But how can I... Please, I need to know what to expect."

"I said stop fidgeting me."

Having not found the desirable bottle, Haymitch sighs again in visible frustration and cups my face in his hands, probably as a poor substitute to liquor.

Because it is so sudden, I don't even respond - just sit there like some green-ass and gape at him in the semi-darkness. All the questions I had regarding Aelius and Gale slip out of my mind.

His stubble pricking my chin. The unfamiliar slightly salty taste of his mouth, still with just a faint tinge of stale liquor. At some point, his eyelashes are almost brushing mine. This is not like what they write about in the books that my aunt and Delly enjoy reading. I am not fainting, and the floor is not swaying under my feet. My head is not in the clouds. My heart is still where it is supposed to be, only beating slightly faster. The butterflies do not multiply in my stomach, although it certainly feels nice and warm. Yet, this is not like anything I have experienced with my boys either.

I don't know how long it has been before he lets go off me, and I realize that although my eyes are somehow closed now, I am still sitting there - all soft and fluttery - like a boring peach blossom that has never been touched before. What's the matter with me? No man would like such a fresh girl, and Haymitch in particular.

I have to go for it even though my arms and legs are all jelly-like. I reach out and - pressing myself against his body - try to go down on him. What follows then is even more unexpected than him casually kissing me.

He pulls my hands off his fly and pushes me back to the opposite end of the sofa. That flicker of annoyance, almost anger, in his eyes again.

"Don't be a fool," he says nastily, "I can get plenty of that shit the day after tomorrow in the Capitol."

I start and stare at him uncomprehendingly. I am so lost sitting on this old dusty sofa next to this strange puzzling man. Lost, helpless, and frightened. What have I done wrong yet again? Why do I keep disappointing him?

Oh, I pull myself together all right but my lips are quivering, as I scramble off the sofa and - again - stumble to the door.

He calls after me in a bored voice.

"The bathroom is just across the hall down the corridor."

Once inside the cubicle, I do not turn on the lights and slump against the door. Sobbing. Pain deep down my belly. Mortified. I think that's it. Now for sure he is going to kick me out. Well, after all, what did I expect? My clumsy tricks have never worked with him.

\- 2 -

When I am back, Haymitch lays flat on the sofa with his eyes closed and his arms raised high above his head. The light from the battery lantern on the desk dimly silvers his forehead and hair.

His face expression impenetrable, he turns and watches me as I shakily comb my hair through with my fingers. My eyes red and swollen, my nose running but it does not matter anyway. Obviously, I cannot fool him. I can be as clumsy or as ugly as I indeed am. With him, I am more me than ever.

"Are your folks expecting you?"

"They don't know I'm out. Even if they did, they don't really care," I almost bite on my tongue. It sounds so cheap and plaintive, "I guess that's a hint for me to go, right? "

He does not respond. I turn to leave, and yet I still linger twisting the door knob. No will-power. No pride. Nothing but dull self-hatred numbing me from inside.

And then I hear the sofa creaking and his heavy footsteps across the room.

"You might as well stay until morning. The Peacekeepers will take you in so late at night. "

As he leads me back to the sofa, I do not say anything, yet, I cannot help but stare at him questioningly. Is he still angry or frustrated with me?

He reads me right,

"Still worrying over my loose screw?"

We sit next to one another - after a while, my head is on his lap - and for once in a lifetime, I have no words. With my boys, I am always a chatter-box. Asking them about their brothers and sisters, and their hobbies, demanding to tell me a funny story and laughing away even if this story is plain boring... But what should I talk to Haymitch about? What should I ask him? What happened to your family? What did you feel the moment when you became a victor? What is the best way to kill people? Do you still remember what your hobby once was?

So, instead, I begin telling him a bit about myself. About my mum and her dancing in the kitchen. About how I used to dance in the Meadow. About Rote and my daily bickering with my aunt. I even tell him about Grita as I remember her. Plumpish, blond, pinkish white, arrogant and willful. Yet, when I was first brought to their house and cried all night through at the new place, it was not my aunt but Grita who came to hold me and sing me a lullaby. Later on, she used to mock and pinch me, and if I cried again, she slapped me hard across the face. We have never been close anymore, but on the day of the reaping, I came to the Justice Building together with my aunt, uncle, and Rote, and this time, it was her crying and me holding her. I felt I owed her that first embrace.

Haymitch listens - or rather, nods off - without interrupting me except for an occasional "Yeah?", or "Go on" each time when I stop talking thinking he has fallen asleep. There is a strained urgency in his voice. It is as though my chatter pulls him through the night, away from brooding over some darker and more troubling thoughts.

Being so close, I hear his heart beating evenly and his stomach rumbling from time to time. Somehow, even though he does not really listen to me, it feels good just to sit here and to tell him about small casual things like that. Things nobody before has been interested enough to hear about.

Yet, as I talk I can hear the invisible clock ticking away. I cannot get rid of thinking about this upcoming afternoon. 'Haymitch or Peeta, Peeta or Haymitch...' - that's what the clock hammers. It is as if someone punches me repeatedly right in the chest, and at times I can barely breathe. Something is beating, and burning, and pains in there. Some desperate wild thing craving to break through my ribs and tear into pieces anyone who dares to hurt this strange surly man with graying hair, gray eyes and worn-out face.

At some point I simply have to stop talking, move aside, and lay flat on my stomach to muffle this crazy heart of mine. He starts sleepily,

"Whuts gon' on?"

And it takes me all my guts not to scream.

"Just a bit tired and wanted to stretch," I whisper back, " It's nothing."

**\- 3 -**

I doze off. Yet, even in my short sleep I hold on Haymitch so tightly my hand is getting numb. Not to let him slip away into black nothingness.

It is all different in the early morning. Haymitch's face expression seems more withdrawn. Hardly the same person who was with me this night. More like his sarcastic and confident Capitol self I used to see on the big screen.

Still, as he sees me off, I smile wanly and cannot help but say,

"I hope that..."

He does not let me finish,

"Take it easy, girl, it will all end soon one way or another."

As if he were promising something. As if I were the one who is going to be reaped today.

\- 4 -

I run back through the still sleeping merchant section. The morning sun is blurry in the cloud of heat and coal dust. My throat is sore, and I feel slightly dizzy. So, I decide against the downspout and batter straight into the door. Fortunately, it is only a very sleepy and bad-tempered Rote who meets me,

"Aren't you a mouthful with your boys? Mom has been asking for you twice. Told her you have some early morning exam at school, so be prepared."

"Oh come on, let me go," I trudge up the stairs. He follows me, hushes at each creak, and continues to grumble,

"Have you forgotten what day is today? Dad will be twice as cross with you."

"I don't give a damn," I reply, "Let me go... I wanna sleep before the reaping."

'Stupid goose," he retorts, "How quickly you calmed down once you know this time nothing threatens your sweet little self."

I kick him in the knee with my heel, and he hisses, tries to slap my behind, and misses.

"Apparently, one hand is not enough for taming a girl," I comment on and close the door of my room right in front of his curious nose.

"So, who is the lucky guy this time? Can I take a wild guess?" he whispers through the keyhole, and I stick out my tongue in his direction.

\- 5 -

I am standing there in the square. Squinting my eyes at the stage which is glaringly-white in the midday sun. It is very hot, stuffy, and crowded, but no one complains. No one dares to move at the machine gunpoint. I catch a glimpse of Aelius standing there among other Peacekeepers. I can recognize him even in his mask my now. He turns in my direction, pulls up his mask for a moment, and aims his gun at me. There is no malice in this action though. He mockingly clicks his tongue as if he were a small boy playing a war game. Apparently, this is his idea of being funny. As much as I need to seem a pea-brained doll, I still cannot bring myself to grin back at him. Not right now. Not ever more if Haymitch's name is cast down.

The trio finally appears led down by the guards in between our two rows. They look straight ahead. Without meeting their relatives, friends, and neighbors' eyes. I think that no matter how the Games end, they are already condemned. Not broken. Yet, separated from the rest of the district by something invisible and more powerful than the Peacekeepers' rifles.

I watch pale and silent Katniss who this time does not even bother to hide tears running down her cheeks. I watch Haymitch glancing sideways and giving her an ever so slight nod of... encouragement? Reassurance? Then, his name is called.

I barely have time to dig my nails into my palms not to scream out loud, when my wish comes true and Peeta steps out to volunteer. But of course, I should have expected that he wouldn't want to leave Katniss. As Delly gasps and starts sobbing by my side, a wave of relief passes over me, and my knees almost buckle. For a little while, everything is in the slightly surreal haze. Does it only seem to me, or Miss Trinket indeed weeps under all her make-up? The haze somewhat dissipates as all the people in the square raise their hands in the final good-bye, and Prim's thin hand is the first one to go up. I look at Peeta and Katniss, at slouching Haymitch who slowly steps off the platform, and I whisper so quietly that even Delly cannot hear me,

"I'm so sorry..."

I'm sorry that I have been thinking Katniss arrogant. That I have not been a better friend to Peeta; even now my nearly joyous relief outweighs my guilt of feeling this joy. Most of all I am sorry that I am only a seventeen-year-old know-nothing-care-about-nothing teen who could not find the right words - if there are such - who could not do something... something for the only one of the trio for whom - I am sure - nobody in the district or the Capitol would probably care much if he died on the arena in these Games. Yet, it is him who stays behind, and it is them - two young beautiful star-crossed lovers - who leave today to meet their death.

\- 6 -

After the guards pull the crowd and screaming Prim away from the Justice Building, and the tributes, their mentor, and the gold-wigged Capitolite are whisked away to the train station, Aelius catches me by my forearm as I pass by. Pretending he is pulling me aside for disobeying their order to clear out of the square at once, he says quickly,

"I have an evening off the day after tomorrow. Meet me at nine at the corner of the pub next to where the Hob has stood. Got it?"

'Here we go... ' I think dejectedly.

I cannot see his face clearly behind the black and shiny glass of his mask, so it is like talking to a mannequin or a mutt.

Yet, with the strain of the last days gone and Haymitch in relative safety, I am a bit giddy, and not scared anymore.

I go as far as to puff out my cheeks and wink at the Peacekeeper.

"What's the matter? Aren't you afraid your boss will tell you off for messing around with the locals? Aren't you supposed to be a watch-dog to us rather than a f**dog?"

He exhales sharply and pulls off his mask. No doubt to intimidate me further with his glowering face.

I should not have risked such an insolent remark. Especially after Haymitch's warning. My task is to gain Aelius's trust rather than irritate him. Yet, a sudden flash of acute pleasure when seeing him furious makes me tremble, and I feel the smile unwittingly appearing on my face.

For the first time, I am looking Aelius straight in the eye. Noticing his pale and sparse lashes. The freckles on his nose.

He watches me back for a long while. His hand still clasping my forearm. The last merchants and Seam people hurrying by, and the Peacekeepers marching off.

I do not blink and do not look away, even though I am still trembling - I cannot quite tell whether it is fear or anger beating in me. Go on, knock me around. As if I am not used to being whacked.

Aelius blinks first, and then, it is like something clicks inside his head. He grins almost complacently.

"I might be a f**dog," he contents, "I have yet to see what kind of a p**dog you are. Meet you by the pub, love."

With his peculiar little laugh, he lets go off me abruptly, and joins his mates on their way to the Peacekeepers' quarters.

I am standing there with my mouth open thinking that I have just got myself into the worst trouble possible.

"Lia, what did this terrible man want from you?"

It is Delly, sweet loyal Delly all the while staying nearby. Frightened and yet ready to come by my side if the worst comes to worst.

I smile at her.

"Nothing. Guess he was just bored and wanted someone to chat to. Turns out he is an animal-lover."

**\- 7 -**

Late in the evening when everyone in the house is sound asleep, I lock myself in the bathroom and stand in front of the moldy cracked mirror. This time it is not the pale shadows of my parents I am looking for. For the first time, I want to see myself for what I am, or rather, for what they - the Seam boys and the merchant sons; Cray and Aelius, - see in me. Maybe then, I will understand how to make Haymitch see it as well.

I watch myself fixedly, impartially, and scrutinizingly as if it were a stranger in that mirror. Frankly speaking, I am somewhat puzzled. No Madge's blond ringlets. No Katniss's deep grey eyes. No Delly's pink cheeks and red lips. What is it in me that appeals to them all? This straight hair which I could never grow longer than shoulder length. This wide stubborn brow and mouth? This pale face with its pointed chin? Somewhat misshapen nose (thanks to my uncle's educational efforts)? My body does not look too bad but still, it is only okay. Some girls in the district have larger breasts and longer legs.

I sigh, put on my robe, and shuffle back to my room. Haymitch was absolutely right. There is nothing in me that he cannot easily get in the Capitol. Without turning on the light, I find my creaky bed, lay on the covers, and close my eyes. As I do so, in the pitch darkness, the events of this long day and the previous night twirl in my mind. The triumph on Aelius's unmasked face. Tears damaging Ms. Trinket's waterproof make-up. Prim's skinny hand high up in the air saluting her sister who is going to die for the second time. Then, in my semi-slumber, Haymitch's aloof and wasted face emerges over mine. And just as sudden, I feel the warmth in the depth of my body and the waves washing over me again. I arch so that only my shoulder blades and my feet touch the bed cover. It is as if I am no more. I am floating in the air. Receding...

When - with my legs slightly shaky - I stumble back to the bathroom to take a quick shower and squint at myself in the mirror, I hardly recognize the girl who peers back at me. I am still me all right, but I somehow look different. My eyes are larger and darker. My skin seems to be glowing. I know then - that's it. That's what Aelius must have glimpsed in me on the day I was dancing down at the store. That's what old Cray used to cup my butt for. Why then doesn't it work for the only one man who can make me feel those waves over my body? What else can I give him? As I sit on the edge of the bathtub watching the colors slowly fading off my face, the piece of sky in the vent window begins to lighten up, and I think that I may - just may be - have stumbled upon an answer.


	11. Chapter 11 The End of the Games

The author's note: This chapter has M rating because of its explicit content and words, as well as some violence. You have been warned.

\- 1 -

Even young as I am, I still recognize many familiar faces on the screen this year. That handsome my-looks-could-kill-better-than-any-weapon guy from District 4 who won the Games somewhat 10 years ago. I remember him so well because Grita, a 13-year-old teen back then, had a huge crush on him, and hung his posters all around her bedroom. That slender girl - her tongue even sharper than her axe - who won the Games the year after Grita had died. Yet, there are also others who had won when I was too young to remember, or not even in prospect. My aunt draws in breath sharply and covers her face as she sees the frail District 8 tribute who is trying to pull her three kids away from herself during the reaping.

Somehow, even though Peeta and Katniss have won the previous Games, they seem a bit out of place among other well-known victors. Still not quite glossed over with years of publicity, mentorship, and blood of other people's kids on their hands as my uncle Rote would say. Still my former classmates more than anything else.

A couple of times I catch a glimpse of Haymitch at the Tribute Parade and during the interviews, and each time I cannot help but worry about some foolish and absolutely insignificant things. Like, why does he look even thinner than the last time I have seen him? Did he start drinking again? Does he sleep at all? Does he remember to eat at least once a day?

I usually manage to check on myself though once I get down to the food question, and try to think about those in actual danger. Yet, I keep squinting or closing my eyes altogether whenever I pass the screen in our living room. This time, I am not going to watch the Games or count the dead as long as I can help it. What's the point? Our district surely does not stand a chance against the best of the best in the whole history of the Games. I reconcile with the fact of never seeing Peeta again, and finally decide to try to forget that the Games are happening right now. I will mourn Peeta and worry about the Games later as I will be waiting for my 18th birthday and my last reaping.

Meanwhile, I have other things on my mind.

\- 2 -

'Other things' is Aelius... We have a daily (sometimes even twice a day) meeting pattern by now.

First time, I trudge to the local pub as he had told me to. Of course, I would not have even bothered to put on my only decent dress or borrow the make-up set from Delly, if it were not for strictly business purposes. My business is to charm him so as to loosen his tongue if possible.

Aelius takes me into the small room above the pub that the Peacekeepers sometimes use for their needs in between the shifts and directs me straight onto the coach without sparing a single word. I look up at him - for the first time without his helmet, and his uniform jacket unzipped. He is fairly young, yet, his face is already somewhat rugged. I try to focus on what is good in him - it would make things easier for me. He is tall and strong as most of them. His hair turns out to be a peculiar chestnut color. You won't see such hair among the locals, Seam or Town people likewise.

I smile at Aelius that disarmingly sweet little smile of mine and tilt my head. It is all too easy to imagine myself an undercover agent, but the truth is I am scared stiff of what the Peacekeeper would do now that I am at his mercy. If I am all smiley and chatty though, maybe, his mood will eventually improve. Either that, or he will get tired of me and send me away sooner than later.

"It must be very boring for you here, at our place," I say, "Especially after District 2. You are from there, aren't you?"

"Did you come here for a chat?" he seems to perceive my design.

"Are you very angry with me?"

"Not yet, but I will be if you go on like this."

"I am sorry," I decide to change my approach from a goofy chatterbox to a cry-baby, "It's just... when a guy is so big, muscular, and strong like you, it takes a bit of time... you know what I am talking about... I haven't been before with... anyone like you."

That is true enough. I have not, and neither do I want to... Yet, my indirect compliment seems to work.

"Fair enough," Aelius pats me on my shoulder and strokes my breast, "Take your time, I am not going to rape you. At least not in the next ten minutes."

He laughs away apparently proud with his little joke. I giggle politely, and for half an hour or so, Aelius is quite easy to manage. We watch the tributes' training session on the small screen, while his hand wanders all over my body.

"You are indeed tiny," he says approvingly, "I don't like big heavy girls. Most of them are like that in my district."

"Is that why you came here?"

"Nah. I was in the Capitol for two years after school," as time goes by, Aelius - thank goodness! - becomes less machine-like and more talkative.

"Really? Why would you leave a place like that?"

"I had to. I popped one girl's cherry. She was the daughter of the government official in the Capitol. Her daddy wasn't thrilled. But he isn't such a big cheese, and my dad's word also counts for something. Me his only son, you know. So, they hushed up that affair. Still though, my career over there is kind of over."

"Were you in love with her?"

"Are you kidding me?" yet, his face takes on a somewhat dreamy expression, "She was a real hottie though. Slim but with boobs like yourself. Could dance nicely. Nothing like you, of course. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen anyone dance as well as you do."

It is foolish of me but I am somewhat flattered. It is probably the nicest thing anyone has ever told me. If only Aelius were not such a jerk most of the time, he could have actually been quite pleasant to interact with. Being not bad-looking is another plus.

" If she weren't such a fool, I could have managed to marry her," he muses on, "Would have taken on the government post in no time like her prick of a daddy. Instead, I'll have to work my a** off for twenty years. My dad says girls will be my ruin one day, and he's probably right."

I cannot think of what to say and sympathetically pat his hand. Unfortunately, this gesture draws his attention back to me.

As the Capitol singer chimes in between the training sessions, Aelius suddenly says,

"Dance for me."

"Right now?"

"Why not?"

Yet, I am only too happy to oblige. Anything but making out with him.

However, as I start moving to the music, Aelius motions me onto the little table by his coach. The table is creaky and unstable; there is not so much space. At some point, I sway and almost fall. Aelius does not help the matter by reaching out and stroking my bare leg from time to time, so that I suddenly feel exposed and vulnerable.

It is curious how such little details can make all the difference. Just five minutes ago, we were sitting side by side, chatting over our beer, and watching the Games not unlike friends or classmates.

Now, it is all back to the Peacekeeper and his new toy. Aelius not only grabs me, but also issues his orders in the same dry and calm voice that he uses to order groceries at my uncle's store.

"Take off your clothes. Turn. Good. Now spread your legs apart. Wider."

I try to be as slow as possible. It is a pity that it is not winter now, and I am not in my three sweaters. There is not much to take off after I get rid of my socks and dress.

I glance at the Peacekeeper sitting there, all smug, his hand at his fly, and I am no longer frightened. I am so angry I could kick him in the face. It is not that I mind him seeing my naked bottom. It is more that I cannot do anything against it. With all my boys and even with Cray, I was still in the control of the situation.

Aelius smiles apparently enjoying my discomfort and asks me to perform a number of other acrobatic tricks. I obey but I close my eyes, breathe deeply, and try to imagine what I might have felt if it were Haymitch ordering me around in the same way. Not that he ever would.

I open my eyes only when Aelius becomes short of patience and pulls me off the table onto the coach. Even though I was dreading this earlier, now laying under his heavy and panting body seems preferable to dancing naked in front of him.

As Aelius comes all over my face - for some peculiar reason, he seems to enjoy it this way - I shut my eyes tight again, just like the porcelain doll Grita and me once had. I patiently lick everything off my lips because that's what he tells me to do, and I am still angry - even angrier than before - not because it disgusts me but because I am not doing it on my own free will.

He is satisfied. Laying next to me and lazily groping my breast. Once again, an amicable not-too-smart next-door guy.

In a little while, he reaches for his pants and takes out a pack of cigarettes out of his side pocket.

"Wanna one? These are some specials. Back from the Capitol."

I have never tried smoking before. The cigarettes that the merchants in the Town smoke are too expensive, and that cheap stuff that the Seam people use smells bad.

I decide to try now, and after several unsuccessful attempts to breathe in the smoke, which end up in coughing and watery eyes, I actually get a knack of that.

My head swims - not unpleasantly. I smear whatever remains of Aelius's recent favors across my face, turn, and smile at him.

He grins back,

"What? Did it already kick in? Do you like it?"

"It's not too bad," I reply lazily.

"What about me? Do you like me?" he asks perkily and comes down between my legs.

"You are not too bad either," I begin to giggle because what he does is ticklish, and Aelius is so funny that I am even no longer furious with him.

"That's right," he says with a smirk, "Stick to me, and we are going to have some swell time. Who knows. I might eventually even marry you just to get back at my stupid dad. Couldn't even get me assigned to a better district."

\- 3 -

Strange Games. Strange unbearably hot and dry summer. Every evening the sky grows darker, the lightning and thunderstorm crack the blackish-blue low clouds, and the scorching wind shuffles through the coal dust. Yet, no rain comes. We fall asleep and wake up tired and sweaty even with the air-conditioning. My attic is like hell kitchen, and after one or two sleepless nights, I take off all my clothes and bed sheets, and simply go to bed naked. If Rote chooses to peep in my key hole, or my aunt decides to pay a visit to check on whether I am still in, well, too bad for them.

As the Games commence, I take on smoking Aelius's specials that - after my request - he pays me with for each visit. Half a cigarette per evening is enough not to worry about anything and anyone, myself including. I keep seeing strange dreams in which fear is mixed with longing, in which Haymitch suddenly turns into Aelius who drowns me in the ocean, and the waves are sweeping over my senseless body...

\- 4 -

'Other things' is Gale...

On the second day of the Games, I finally remember Haymitch's obscure request and ask Gale out. He seems surprised. For the past two or three years, since he has fallen in with Katniss, we have not seen much of each other. Yet, we both share that common bond - that chill up our spines each time the large screen lightens up. That worry about those whom we are helpless to help to.

Gale is somewhat reluctant at first, but I have yet to find a guy who would refuse a girl if he knows this date involves neither further promises nor any responsibility. After the end of his shift in the mines, we sneak out into the Meadow when it is already dark.

To gain more of his trust, I decide on my usual course of actions. What worked with the Peacekeeper should work with the miner too.

Gale's mind is probably far away in the woods where him and Katniss used to disappear, but his body reacts so quickly that I am somewhat taken aback. He is good at kissing though, better than Aelius, I'll give him that. I do not really care that once her name almost slips off his tongue.

It is something completely different that eventually puts me off. This new dark feeling of... blind anger that I have first felt dancing on the table for Aelius overcomes me again because I allow somebody else lay on top of me. As if my body does not belong to me. As if it is a public fountain for everyone to drink from or wash their feet in.

"Gale," I whisper to this handsome boy who loves another girl like no one will ever love me, "Sorry, I can't."

He does not insist. It is as if he too were trying to forget himself with me rather half-heartedly.

We sit next to each other. Him staring blankly to the ground. Me picking up some dry twigs and absent-mindedly breaking them into small pieces. Both thinking about the Games.

"You've changed since the last time we were here," he finally says.

I shrug,

"I guess, we have just grown up."

"Grown up for what?" he is suddenly bitter, "What about you? Looking for a Cray to ensure your future?"

"No, looking for a Gale to have some fun with at this very moment," I snap. Angry because his words are a distant echo of what Haymitch said to me just the other day.

He grins,

"Sorry, I didn't want to offend you..."

"I am not so easily offended."

We are silent again for a while. Gale shifting his weight from one foot to another. Probably wanting to leave and wondering why I am still lingering here in this dark and dusty field. I decide that it is time now.

"Gale," I begin carefully, "What do you think about the interviews?"

He starts and shakes his head in annoyance,

"Do you really have to talk about this now?"

Oh yes, right, Katniss being pregnant, or not pregnant, but what does it really matter if she is going to die anyway, and we have ourselves (in Gale's case, his and Katniss's family as well) to think about?

"It's just that this time all tributes behaved very differently."

"Can't see why that might be so," he responds somewhat sarcastically.

"Gale," I have never been good at beating around the bush, so I decide to go ahead. Hopefully, they do not have cameras installed in the Meadow. Even so, I am careful not to name the President or the government, "Do you think there might be some backlash? Surely, something might happen. Like last winter when they sent in the new Peacekeepers and established a curfew."

Gale watches me curiously.

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, it's just that... My uncle - he's friends with our Mayor, you know - visited him yesterday, and when he came back, he told us - me and Rote - to be extra careful in case we smell trouble."

I wisely leave Haymitch out of this. Even if someone can somehow overhear us, better my uncle suffers the consequences than him.

Gale is still suspicious.

"Why did you choose me to talk to?"

"I think I can trust you. You seem to be the only one of us who knows his way around," I merely repeat Haymitch's words, but of course, Gale does not suspect this.

He sits by my side again. I have Gale's full attention now.

"So, your uncle and the Mayor think they might take their revenge upon our district because of what Katniss did during her interview, and also, to prevent any possible uprising?"

I have not really considered the possibility of any uprising but indeed, it makes a perfect sense as he says that.

"What do you think they might do? Send in more troops? More restrictions?"

He shakes his head again. His face grave and contemplative. His eyes like two pieces of smoldering coal. Even in the dark, I can see them almost burning with strange excitement.

"If your uncle told you to watch out and didn't explain what for, that must mean they want it to be sudden and unexpected. Sending in the troops or imposing new rules won't suffice any longer," he springs up onto his feet, "It's getting late. We shouldn't stay here. The curfew, remember? Thanks for the heads up, Lia. I am going to talk to some other people, to make them aware of what is coming."

"Wha... What?!.. Wait!" I hold onto him, "You can't just go on talking about something you know nothing about. Besides, my uncle asked me not to tell anyone."

"Well, see? Here we go!" he answers, even more troubled now, "Why would he tell you to be careful and not to talk to anyone if he did not know about something being planned?"

Oh no! I am going to be crucified first by my uncle if all this comes to light and he is held responsible for the fuss, and then, by Haymitch for not keeping my promise.

Gale finally takes notice of my distress,

"It's okay, Lia, I am not going to rat you out. I understand that you want to keep clear of the whole matter, and I do not blame you or your uncle for that. However, you do realize that I am not going to leave others in the dark. Like I said, I do appreciate your warning though. I am going to be very discreet, and you won't hear anything about this business."

No, that's even worse. The whole point of our talk was not for some miners to save their butts, but for Gale to help me out if necessary. There is only one thing left now.

"I... I want to be involved," I stammer, "That's why I told you even though my uncle had forbidden me."

He frowns in contemplation of my confession. Then, his face brightens up.

"Good. So, would it be too much to ask you to keep me informed? Um... like not spying on your uncle, of course, but I am sure it will be easy for you to overhear what him and the Mayor are talking about, or maybe, even ask some questions. I know the Mayor is only a pawn but still, that's the only chance we've got to find out what's really going on."

'If there is anything at all to find out...' I think gloomily. Funny that Gale also wants me to be on my guard. At least, Haymitch had more savvy to figure out that my relations with Aelius might be more helpful in this case than my uncle's connections.

\- 5 -

The Games must go on, and the tributes die oh so quickly. In the haze of Aelius's cigarettes though, they seem less real - all these puppet-like people running in the jungle, getting shot, torn apart, or blown up... It is only the third evening of the Games, yet, most of the tributes are already dead. At this pace, Haymitch is going to be back by the end of the week.

It is hot as usual as me and Aelius are sitting in our small room above the pub. I am sweating, and the bright circles the color of blood swirl in front of my eyes overshadowing the screen on which the ever-surviving Katniss and her allies are planning to blow up their enemies. The thunder starts to growl somewhere far away.

I still have no clue as to what the Peacekeepers' plans regarding our district might be, and no information to share with Gale. I desperately need to find something out today. It is high time. Me and Gale agreed to meet after I come back from Aelius to discuss our plan in case of an emergency. It is risky to meet so late at night but I decide that even if the Peacekeepers do see us, I will get round them and let Gale escape. Thanks to Aelius, I have my everyday alibi and enjoy the liberty of going out during the curfew. He has even taken pains to obtain a special permit for me - surely, without his boss knowing anything - in order to have me by his side in-between his night shifts.

Aelius is not in the mood for talking though. The first thing he does is to take hold of my forearm. It is painful. The bruises will probably stay.

"The cameras around the district," he says as I gasp, "One of my colleagues - who is very much concerned about my well-being - has been sifting through some random camera recordings today and he has found some interesting files on you. Seems like I am not the only one you are meeting with."

I watch him somewhat alarmed. Since the new Peacekeepers arrived and Aelius began courting me, I have hardly dated anyone. So, it must be no one else but Gale the cameras caught me with.

"For some reason, I am deeply convinced something illegal is going on, and you are a vital part of it," Aelius continues smugly while I am desperately trying to think of some explanation to protect Gale and myself in case the cameras have overheard our talk, "You are technically still underage and messing around with an older man. Came to his house late at night and left in the morning."

Aelius clicks his tongue in mock disapproval.

I hardly need to ask what he means. They probably got me on my way to the Victors' Village...

Suddenly I remember the darkness in the small room into which Haymitch brought me that last night. No electricity, all those wires, and bare walls. Is it possible that the cameras are not only on the streets but in people's houses? Is that why he has never wanted me at his place?

Whether it is true or not, I know I am in trouble. Aelius is jealous, and I am going to be punished unless I find my way to deal with him...

I smile carelessly, "Oh, do you mean old Abernathy? Well, what did you expect? You and I were not yet close back then, and I was in need of some cash to buy myself new clothes. Look at my underwear. It's such a disgrace."

As Aelius still watches me suspiciously, I put my head on his shoulder, "Look... You don't think I was excited about him, do you? Darn, it's like kissing a garbage can. Besides, he was so drunk I could barely make him..."

"Knock it off," he is disgusted, "I don't need any more details. Hope you didn't catch anything from him."

"I told you he couldn't even..."

Aelius smirks,

"You all are so pathetic. All of you at twelve. Your men are hardly better than animals, and girls are all whores. I thought you at least were different."

'Right,' I think, 'I am disgusting when I am making out with anyone else but you. What made you decide you were so special after all?'

Aloud, I say,

"But I am different now. Thanks to you."

My appeal to his better feelings does not lead me anywhere, which is a pity. Not because I care about what he thinks of me but because he will hardly be talkative now. No chance of obtaining the information that I so badly need.

For a while, we watch the Games in silence. Katniss and Johanna Mason are alone in the forest carrying their wire to the beach. Brutus and Enobaria are lurking around in the dark. That's when Aelius gets impatient and switches off the TV set.

"Enough of that. I bet they will tarry until morning, and my shift is in an hour."

He turns off the lights as usual. There are no curtains on the windows, and Aelius does not want any of his mates or the Head Peacekeeper to see how he spends his off-duty time.

I manage to keep him off for a while by massaging and kissing his body - he especially insists on me licking his not so clean feet, probably, to punish me for my misdeeds. Then, I rush off to the bathroom to rinse my mouth and pour some drink for us both, but his patience is short.

This time Aelius tries to make it as long and unpleasant to me as possible using all the objects he can think of including the cigarette butts, and even though I am quiet being no stranger to pain, I eventually cannot help tears rolling down my face.

Fortunately, it is dark in the room. Too dark actually. No lights in other windows, and no street lamps as well. Probably, the power has gone off as it sometimes does.

Aelius pants and gasps as I bend over at his command, and if I were to watch this on the screen, I would probably be laughing out loud. Yet, I am here, and I already hurt all over and probably bleed as a result of his earlier actions, and he tugs on my hair and clasps me tighter...

That's when everything happens at once... We hear the sound of a distant thunder, and then, the long and shrill howling of the district fire alarm.

"What the heck?" Aelius lets go of me and grabs his radio.

"What do you mean why I turned off my radio? I'm off duty, man... What? What hoverplanes? What emergency are you talking about? It was not even scheduled for today, was it?! What am I supposed to do now? I am asking what..." Aelius shouts in his radio, and it screams something back at him, and then, suddenly, goes mute.

"Bastards!" he swears and throws the now useless apparatus against the wall, "Just left me here."

The howling becomes louder, but I hear something else. Some buzzing...


	12. Chapter 12 The Uncle and His Niece

The author's note: Sorry for another long delay. I am trying so hard but my working schedule is killing me.

Hope you'll stay tuned!

\- 1 -

As Aelius rushes to the window, the sky lightens up, and the crack of thunder is the loudest I have ever heard. It is so strong that the glass in the window explodes. I fall on the ground, crouch behind the coach and cover my head while everything shakes, and roars, and flashes all around me, and I scream, yet, I cannot hear or see anything but the dust and pieces of glass flying in all directions.

Then, it becomes quiet... only there is this buzzing in my ears... As I slowly rise from the floor, I see Aelius turning around and blindly stumbling in my direction. But as in some nightmarish dream, it is not him anymore - not that handsome blue-eyed athlete. His face is a gurgling and bubbling mess of blood, and something whitish-yellowish sticks out in the place where his nose is supposed to be.

I scream again as this mutt creature reaches out and stretches its dripping bloody limbs towards me, and I still do not hear my own voice. Only this buzzing and ringing. Then, everything starts to shake and fall apart yet again, and I push him away - I jump over the coach - through the doorway - the door is no more - down the crumbling staircase.

I run along the street, and scream, and bump into other bloody mutts with their mouths wide open in a silent cry (or perhaps, it is me not being able to hear anything anymore). Someone is missing a hand, someone is trying to hop on one leg and holds onto another - squished and smashed, - and someone is crawling on the ground leaving behind the trail of black intestines.

I do not recognize any of the people or buildings anymore. For all I know, this is no longer my district. I might as well be on the arena. The houses are burning, and the roofs are collapsing around me. I slip in the puddle of blood, get hit by the hot tile, fall twice, trip over someone's still body, then jerk myself up and over it, and blindly sprint forward.

It is as if I have been preparing for something like this all my life starting from my first nightmare following my first reaping. My preparation has finally paid off. When the howling panicking man whose hair is on fire seizes me in a stranglehold and wheezes, "Help... please...", I pick up the piece of burning timber and hit him on his knuckles and into his face to break free.

Help... My main concern now is who will help me.

I change my direction. I do not run towards my uncle's store anymore. Instead, I head straight to the Meadow where Gale was supposed to meet me. Let him get me out of this burning hell and save me as Haymitch said he would.

On my way there, someone grasps me from behind. I turn kicking and thrusting - and it is Rote! His face is bloody and scratched, but it is still him with his lips moving. But I cannot hear, and I do not care what he mumbles about. I push him to move faster, and then, I notice that he limps, and there is someone behind him. I hardly recognize my aunt Nola in this weeping disheveled woman. No sight of my uncle. No time for questions. We pick her up, and drag her along with the things flying and burning over our heads. And guess what? She does not make things any easier for us by trying to wriggle out and sprint in the opposite direction.

Even as we are in the Meadow and follow Gale and others on and on into the woods, even as we are hurdling on the shore of a small lake, my aunt still struggles. I have to slap her hard across her face twice to calm her down, and this action sends a shiver of pleasure up my spine. It is as if now our roles have been reversed. She is afraid, and I am in control.

As my aunt goes limp, however, I feel something warm trickling down my brow. I look at Rote and other injured sobbing people, I think about what's left of Aelius, and now, I am frightened as never before in my life.

"Rote, what's with my face?" Oh this long and terrible moment when I do not hear myself and strain my voice over and over again, "Rote, what's with my face? Tell me right now what's with my face?!"

I see his lips moving and cannot make head and tails of what he is saying. I point at my ears, shake my head and then shake him, until he gestures that it is okay... okay... My face is not damaged. I do not believe him. I feel my face, my arms, and legs. Nothing seems to be missing. I am miraculously whole. Still though I continue to pat myself over until the fire in the far away grows smaller, and the darkness around us starts to lighten. It is only the black smoke now, and everyone is so quiet. No one says a word. Or is it just me being deaf? Rote covers me with his pajama shirt as I start drifting away. That's right, I remember, I've ran out stark naked...

\- 2 -

The next three days pass by in pain from all the angry burns and cuts, constant hunger, mosquito bites, and moans of the wounded. I am even glad that my hearing comes back so slowly. All this wailing does not prevent me from sleeping soundly at night.

Little Prim takes care of Rote's bleeding leg using some leaves and patches of moss. For everyone to let me be, I pretend to take care of my aunt who steadily refuses to sleep or take it easy, yet never refuses a bite of the half-cooked squirrel that Gale has shot down.

My uncle Rote is with us no more. Just after I had gone to meet with Aelius and before the Games ended, the two Peacekeepers appeared at our doorstep and took my uncle at the Head Peacekeeper's orders. He still hadn't come back by the time the bombs started to fall.

Although my aunt keeps hoping he is alive and will miraculously make his way to the woods, Rote and I are not very optimistic. One of the survivors - the girl who used to work at the store not far from the Peacekeepers' quarters - tells Rote a very strange and not very probable story. On the very same evening, somewhat an hour before Katniss shot her arrow into the forcefield, the girl had caught a glimpse of several armed Peacekeepers escorting two handcuffed men who looked just like my uncle and the Mayor.

It is not nice of me, since no matter what our relations were, this man has been bringing me up; yet, I am not at all sorry that I am no longer to endure my uncle's bad mood in future. I am also glad that Rote and my aunt are clueless as to my involvement in all this. I am somewhat concerned about the Mayor and his family though. Maybe, if it were not for me and that tale I had fed Gale, the Capitol might have even arranged for their evacuation together with the Peacekeepers. I eventually find consolation in thinking that there was too little time for that anyway. And then... better them than me. It seems I have something to thank Aelius for after all.

I am still pondering over Aelius's fate, and whether it might have also come about because of me, while Rote tells me or rather shouts in my ear how the Games have ended. I am still in need of some details about what exactly happened to Katniss and other surviving tributes, but to tell the truth, during these three days, their fate worries me far less than ours.

Then, the hovercraft arrives. At first, people - me included - scatter around and hide behind the trees and bushes. But the show goes on as we find ourselves deep underground in District 13. "We" is a little over 800 people-refugees hiding away from the Capitol in the district that is officially no more.

\- 3 -

District 13... On our second morning there, they take those of us who are in a more or less working condition down to the main hall and put us in lines. Then, a small hawkish-like woman with her hair like the lead sheet appears on the balcony. They inform us that President Coin will speak to us. Yes, just like that... Not the Mayor, or anything, but the President. One needs only to close their eyes, and the illusion of standing at the square and waiting for Snow's annual speech will be complete. The woman talks in her brisk metallic voice - such a good match for her hair - but her voice trails off. First, because my ears still hurt, and everything sounds as if I am deep under water. Second, because I am too busy thinking that we have had way too many doubles for my taste. We have had Head Peacekeeper number 2 (much good it did us!), now we have President number 2, and Homeland number 2 (aka District 13).

The woman is gone, and before I can blink my eye, we are transported to another room (boys on the right, girls on the left), given the uniforms the color of lead (this seems to be their favorite), and read off the list of our rights and responsibilities (the latter is much-much longer than the former). Our hands are stamped with the daily schedule, and off you go, Soldier Rosany. When I first hear my new rank, I think that my damaged ears might have yet again played a trick on me and ask again. No, Soldier Rosany it is. I burst into laughing, and my superior regards me with disapproval. I want to explain to this tight-lipped fellow that I am not being ungrateful. It's just that all my life I've been taught compliance and non-resistance, so now calling me "Soldier" is hardly better than any open mockery.

I quickly understand that while I loathed my life at District 12 and thought my uncle's bad mood was the worst thing that could ever happen to me... well, I simply had no idea what District 13 was going to be like. I am not even talking about scarce and tasteless food (I've never had plenty of food anyway) or grey uniforms smelling of bleach. It is this life we are leading underground, not seeing the sun, not feeling the wind on our faces. It is impossible to tell how bright or dark, hot or cold it is outside because the air conditioning always keeps the same temperature, and the electric lamps send out the same yellowish-green light.

The 24-hour schedule is far worse than the household duties that have kept me busy at my uncle's house. There at least I was free to wander away after 10 pm when my family went to bed and I had my room in the attic all to myself. Here, I am never on my own. Always with someone else, always doing what everyone else does. Waking up and going to bed. Taking shower at the specific time. Almost going to the bathroom on the schedule. Even the 18:00 - Reflection time is of no use to me since I share the living quarters with Rote and my aunt Nola who continues to weep quite loudly each night into her pillow. Rote is patient enough to sit with her and coax her back to sleep, but I am not so much. Ironically, all it takes is another slap or two from me and the threat to ask for her transfer into the ward for mentally unstable patients to talk some sense into my aunt. Rote is angry and hurt but I could care less. After all, aren't we all considered equals here who are supposed to behave and contribute to the society's well-being? No more of this "dirt-poor ungracious niece and good wealthy relatives" nonsense. Better get used to the military commune life, auntie and cousin.

Things get even better once someone tells me that Katniss is safe and sound, kept in the hospital together with two other victors. The Head Gamemaker and a couple of other people from the Capitol are also here. This sounds like the ravings of a madman except that it is true, and this sick joke is apparently called rebellion.

I still do not quite believe all the rumors until one morning I see Katniss at the breakfast table next to Gale. I almost spill my tea when I notice her. Very pale and haggard-looking, with the bandage on her arm, but it is Katniss all right.

I rush over to their table and cry out before I have time to think,

"It's really you! Are you alone here?"

She looks at me as if just woken up from the bad dream only to find herself in a worse one, and Gale makes desperate signs behind her back. Yes, Peeta... I somehow forgot all about him at the sight of her.

I stumble in the middle of my question. Her unfocused and aloof face frightens me.

"I mean, is anyone else left in the hospital?.."

"Finnick Odair is already out," Gale answers for his girl, "I believe by now only Haymitch Abernathy is still closed in, but it is different with him. "

**\- 4 -**

It is easier than I have expected to volunteer at the hospital. I tell the school officials that I want to study for a nurse certificate. I also talk about my experience in nursing quite persuasively, and I almost do not exaggerate. After all, I have spent a lot of time taking care of Rote after his injury and of my aunt with her migraines and stomach colic. With all these weak teens and injured elders from District 12, they need my help; so, after some consideration, they sign me up for day classes and make me take night shifts helping the nurses.

For a few days I do nothing but dull menial job changing the bed sheets, taking out the night pots, bringing thermometers and water, and assisting people in walking, sitting up, crawling, and turning in their beds. It is a dreadful nauseating experience, and I wonder at Prim who manages even worse things with her usual kind smile. On my part, I only hope to find some way to the ward where Haymitch is being kept before I am promoted to clysterizing the patients.

On my first night shift at the hospital I get to know the young serious nurse assistant whose name is Kerl. His parents died of the pox epidemic just like mine when he was still a toddler. This sad family background and even more the fact that he is taking shifts in the ward where Haymitch is drying out has brought us closer together. I try to reinforce our good rapport which is a bit challenging with me pale and tired in this dull grey uniform. Even my aunt's worst oldest dress was more joyful than these soldier's rugs. But then, that's right, ain't I a soldier now?

I decide to tell Kerl the truth about what brought me here. Well, almost... He thinks Haymitch is my uncle. My father's older brother. The only male relative I have except Rote, and very dear to me besides. Kerl's face grows long and even more serious as he struggles to explain why the doctors will not allow me to see my uncle right away.

"Now they give him quite strong sedatives and anticonvulsant drugs, so he mostly sleeps or is delirious. He wouldn't even know you."

At nights he is at his worst, Kerl explains, as it always is with delirium tremens. As I look at him with my eyes wide-open and non-comprehending, he tells me the whole story. Haymitch was okay the first two days after they had arrived and we had still been in the woods, but then he got himself a bottle of rubbing alcohol - no one knows how he managed this because alcohol is strictly prohibited and, consequently, always locked up. Once this bottle was over, he had a withdrawal. So, they had to take him in right before they let Katniss out.

I do not insist, but I sigh, look at Kerl sideways out of the corner of my eyes, smile a little sad smile while biting my lower lip, hold his hand, and ramble on how lost I feel here all by myself still bereaving one uncle and separated from another. Good and earnest boys usually cannot stand my grimacing for long.

"Perhaps, it would do him some good to see you," contemplates Kerl as we are sitting next to each other at dinner with Rote grinning at me across the two tables with the what- you-again-with-your-boys look, "He is not very susceptible to treatment, I must say, and rages each time he comes to his senses. I wonder how a person can be so willing to destroy himself."

"I do wonder at that myself," I murmur picking at my porridge.

\- 5 -

The shock of recognizing Haymitch Abernathy in this haggard-looking yellow-skinned man struggling in his drug-incited dreams is more than anything else that has happened to me so far.

"What are you... they doing to him?" I gasp tugging on Kerl's sleeve, "Why is he strapped? What kind of a crazy treatment is that?"

He hushes me,

"The straps are only temporary to prevent him from harming himself and the personnel. I think you better leave now. I told you the sight might upset you."

"No, I'm fine," I hastily wipe off my face.

As Kerl walks away to attend to other patients having instructed me to immediately press the bell button if Haymitch starts raving, I kneel in front of the bed. He has just received another dosage of the sedating drug, as Kerl said, and is now laying almost without moving with his eyes half-closed. Eyelashes matted. The bloody scratch across the side of his face. The heavy odor of sickness.

He indeed does not show any sign of recognition, but as I move closer, Haymitch tugs on the straps, tries to pull away, and mumbles something incoherent.

They cannot help with this, and no one can - I understand immediately - all their praised medical training. He is too far gone. Drying out at this point means pointlessly hurting him rather than curing.

As I sit by his side - my face pressed into his unresponsive palm - I seriously contemplate luring Kerl into unlocking the cabinet where they store their rubbing alcohol. I would have risked stealing some of it but the problem is I can do this only once or twice before they find me out.

It hits me all of a sudden. As if seeing Haymitch in this always brightly lit white ward - strapped, with the droppers and catheter attached to his limp body - unlocks the secret code in my mind. I am helpless in this underground district - as helpless as before at the reapings - and so is Haymitch, no matter how smart he is, and how brainless I am.

Any system is no more than a prison. Whether they choose to call it militarism, totalitarism, democracy, or any other name. They can still do whatever they want and pretend this is all for our own good and safety.

I am not used to such global thinking, and the abyss I am looking into terrifies me so much that for a while, I forget everything about Haymitch or where I am - imprisoned deep underground. I am just sitting here - my heart pounding, my breathing raspy, and my mind and body screaming silently as if it were all over again - I am twelve years old, volunteered by my uncle at my first reaping.

'I don't want to - I don't want - I - don't - want...nonononono!'

"Lia," Kerl's serious voice finally breaks through, "Lia, it's time. The nurses will come back soon. I don't want anyone to see you here."

As I walk out of the ward, my head is spinning, and I am so nauseated that I barely make it to the bathroom. I throw up violently and then, cry sitting on the cold sparkling-white floor bathed in the yellow-green light. Cry for the first time since our district has been bombed.

**\- 6 -**

I do not feel quite well these days. All these sleepless nights and tasteless food. Rote wakes up and casts weird looks at me as I crawl into my bed early in the morning, and then have to get up again and rush to the bathroom because the smell of medicines is still in my nose, and the nausea suddenly overwhelms me.

I have to skip two shifts because I feel so dizzy and weak. I almost pass out during the lunchtime, so they take me back to my quarters, and one tired overworked nurse takes some blood and urine samples and promises to get back to me with the results. In the end of the week, I come back to the hospital, and - surprise! - Kerl tells me Haymitch is so much better that he has been taken off his droppers and most of his drugs. They might even let him out by the next week.

"I told him you'd visited him," Kerl brims with happiness on my behalf, "And he was very much overjoyed."

I cannot believe it,

"Was he indeed?"

"Yes, I think so. He said he hardly had any doubt you'd be persistent enough to follow him even through the bombing."

That same day I am issued the official permission to visit the patient, and after my shift is over, I head off to Haymitch's ward. My uniform is hopelessly ugly, my hair lank, and my face too pale, but like they say, if you can't change your situation, change your attitude. So, as I walk by, I smile brightly at the head nurse quietly conversing with the tall heavily-set man whose face looks vaguely familiar.

As I look into his room through the square window in the door, Haymitch is sitting at the table in his grey pajama and with apparent distaste, sups some watery soup. He seems a bit better off than the last time I have seen him but still much thinner than back at twelve. Yet, this is in no way healthy muscular leanness. More like emaciation. I notice that his hands are shaking so badly it takes him a while to manage the spoon.

He looks up, and there is something in his face... under all this stubble and longish dirty greying hair shielding his eyes... I do not give myself time to think about what I see. I impatiently slide the door open and enter ready to rush forward and throw my arms around him ... but that same face expression, that has made me come in, now holds me back.

I pause at the doorstep.

Haymitch speaks out first, and his voice is far from welcoming.

"Well, if it isn't my niece," he says evenly, "Had no idea I even have one."

"Yes, it came as a surprise for me since you've never mentioned anything about any of your relatives left at twelve," says someone behind me, and as I start and turn around, I see the man who has been talking to the nurse in the corridor.

"I see I have the visitors' day," Haymitch looks both bored and annoyed, "Glad you at least had some decency to wait until they have me off my catheter and straps."

"Hmph...well," the new visitor does not try to hide his grin, "I'll spare your modesty. But yes, what did you expect? The case needs you."

"What? I left you my bird, and now you tell me you can't even manage her?"

As the two men interact, I - apparently forgotten - begin to slowly move backwards. Now is not the time. Perhaps, another day.

The visitor catches on himself and turns to face me.

"Excuse my negligence. I'm Plutarch. Plutarch Heavensbee."

Of course, I think timidly shaking hands with him. No wonder his face looks familiar. But what would the Capitolite, the Head Gamemaker at that, do in the district of rebels? Yet, after all that has happened, why am I even surprised? Am I not in that same district that officially exists no more?

"I'm Lia," I say quietly and stare at the spotless white floor.

"Glad to meet you, Lia. So, what's the story?" he sounds genuinely interested as he addresses Haymitch, "I know about the Everdeens and the Mellarks - by the way, the Mellarks didn't make it, did they? That's a pity although would make no difference for the boy in his present situation - but your niece, now, that's the news!"

"Yeah, back at twelve, I used to have more nieces than I could remember of. The whole district full of them, and some were quite persistent just like this one. What can I say? Desperate times and desperate measures," Haymitch says, and as I look up abashed I see him wink, and Plutarch chuckle, "Those happy days are gone, as gone is my monthly victor's allowance. So, here, girl, some information for you to consider."

"What?" I stare at him completely lost and bewildered.

"Sorry to disappoint your expectations," he goes on smoothly, "Thought we should set things straight from the start though."

"Now, I'll just leave you both to yourselves," Plutarch Heavensbee makes it for the door, "I was anyway just going to say hello and check on how you are doing. Talk to you tomorrow."

"No, don't leave yet, I'll be right back with you. This won't take more than a minute," Haymitch calls out to him.

As we are again alone in the ward, he watches me somewhat amusedly,

"Well? Someone's been watching too many lovebird stories on Capitol TV. Apparently all this Peeta-Katniss crap has gone into your head, and you decided to be the nurse at my bedside?"

I shake my head confusedly. The rebellion? Some girls who have apparently been coming to his house just like I did? Katniss and Peeta? Why would he even mention them now? I helplessly grasp at his words, but the meaning slips away leaving me even more hopeless and numb with the pain of being rejected.

There is so much I want to say and ask, but all I can manage is,

"Why? What have I ever done wrong to you?.." I break off as my throat becomes too tight.

"Nothing," he says indifferently, "It's not about you. It's just that I have neither time nor money anymore for fooling around. Get it?"

I hang my head and slowly shuffle to the door. I do not understand. Does he still think I am after his victor's monthly allowance? Yet, somewhere deep inside I feel, no. It's not about the money. It's simply him not needing or wanting me.

"By the way, just one more thing," he says lightly as I am just about to open the door.

I turn hopefully, but his face is blank. I have a passing thought that he had quite a similar face expression when meeting with the parents of his dead tributes upon the train with the coffins arriving to our station.

"Please do try to remember that the next time you bother me, I'll have to turn you in. With all this discipline and order, surely they must have some facilities for underage floozies."

As I struggle with the door knob - my fingers numb and cold - and then rush down the corridor, I can hear him laughing,

"See, Plutarch, here is that one fly in the ointment. All this revolutionary mess has just cost me my newfound relative."


	13. Chapter 13 An Eye for An Eye

**Thank you to everyone who's been reading, commenting, and sticking around. It does mean a lot to me to know that someone out there is interested to read this. A special huge thanks to Woodspurge whose comments have been pushing me to go on. **

**Sorry for the updates being not that frequent. It's becoming more difficult because a****s I move towards the post-Mockingjay time, I am sort of debating with myself how to rule this out. ****Your feedback is always greatly appreciated.**

**\- 1 -**

I do not even take offence with Haymitch. It is as if another bomb from the Capitol was dropped and left me once again deaf, and blind, and maimed for life. As if my face is a bloody mask, and my body is squished and torn into pieces. One doesn't take offence at the bomb, one is just hurting all over and praying for a quick end.

I report extreme fatigue - which is not untrue - and ask to be transferred somewhere else. This time they are not so easily persuaded, and all I gain is having day shifts instead of working at nights.

Then, I resort to the only way to cure myself that I know. For a while I contemplate asking Gale for a date but quickly abandon the idea. First, he is too busy with Katniss filming these propos and doing I don't know what. And then, probably the only reason why he is attractive to me is again Katniss. As if cheating on her with her cousin-boyfriend-fellow-hunter, I would somehow get my revenge on her mentor. The twisted way my mind works now makes me somewhat scared. It is as if this bleak life underground sucks out my sanity.

I turn to Kerl instead, and one evening we lock ourselves in the hospital bathroom. It is dark, dirty, and smelly in there, and what we do to each other is no better. What makes it even worse, he is so gentle, and tries to kiss me, and make me feel good... and I don't need this at all. I want the boy to strike me, make it hurt... so that the physical pain would snap me out of this dull hopelessness. In the darkness of the bathroom, I close my eyes and imagine Aelius making out with me. Not the arrogant handsome Peacekeeper I've known but that mutt that clung to me with his face a mask of bubbling yellow and red. When I hear Kerl blubbering away about me being beautiful, wonderful, and the best ever, I start to giggle and then laugh out loud.

That is when the patients in the adjoining rooms start complaining about the noise. I am glad because if it were not for them, I would have probably started raving and banging my head on the wall. As we hastily get out, I tell the boy,

"Well, you're nothing to boast about, you know... So let's forget about what just happened, okay?"

When I watch his face changing, I feel both pleasure and remorse.

Days pass by, and each day brings more rules, responsibilities, and flag-waving proclamations.

I work at the hospital, nip at my food, lose weight, spend sleepless nights blinded by the green-yellow electric light, scream at my aunt, and snap at Rote. I am annoyed with everyone. Even sympathetic Delly who tells me I do not look well, although she herself is a sight taking care of her younger brother and mourning their parents. Even our glorious ever-surviving Mockingjay (someone really should change her name to Phoenix) who is allowed to hunt and run around in the fresh air, while I am stuck inside, and if I don't like it, too bad for me.

\- 2 -

The worst is yet to come. One morning there is a '9:30 am - Doctor's Appointment' on my daily schedule. Again some routine check-up and blood tests... I am unhappy that I have to skip my usual morning training session. There I can at least doze off at the back of the auditorium while the speaker rambles on how to differentiate between different types of guns and bombs only by their sound. As if it helps you to know what bomb you are going to be blown into pieces with.

The doctor asks me directly into her office, and as I grudgingly perch on the edge of the chair, she tells me they have the results of my tests and then asks me a series of very strange questions.

"When and how often did you have your sexual intercourse? I know you are not married, but have you been dating anyone in particular? Or was that with different partners? Are they here now?"

As I burst out, "What business is this of yours? How do you even know I had this intercourse? Is it something in my blood tests or just on my sweet innocent face?", she replies calmly and as-a-matter-of-fact.

"I did not mean to interfere with your privacy, Lia. Yet, since you are now pregnant, your future child's health is our common concern. I need to find out as much about your partner's background as possible in order to exclude..."

"What?!"

Her voice trails off as I gasp, and for the first time in my life almost pass out. Breath in - breath out. Slowly. Again. One more time. That cannot be...

"Your tests are all bullshit. I've been taking my medications all the time. My aunt made me to."

"What medications have you been taking?" She asks sympathetically.

"Stoneseed root and... hmm... Thistles. For almost three years by now."

"Oh that," she smiles and shakes her head, "The medicine available in your former district leaves wishing for better... All I can say you're lucky you've kept your ground for so long."

"He is dead," I tell grimly to my doctor, "Died during the bombing. He was... um... my classmate. From a very good family of merchants."

No way I am telling anyone that I got knocked up by the Peacekeeper.

"I'm sorry about that, Lia," she says, "I understand how you must feel. My husband also died during the epidemics. We were newlywed."

'Fat chance that you understand,' I think and say aloud,

"So, when am I to come for... um... the regular procedure?"

"I think check-ups twice a month should be sufficient," she answers kindly, "And of course, if meanwhile you feel worse, you can contact me or my colleagues at any time."

"No," I dig my nails into my palms, both nervous and dizzy again, "What check-ups are you talking about? I need an abortion."

"Pardon me?" She pretends that she has not heard me but I can see her eyes narrowing slightly and prepare myself for a fight.

"You don't think I am going to keep it, do you? I mean I am not married, and still underage, and my relatives have no idea..."

"We are well-prepared," her voice softens again as she tries to persuade me, "We have a highly qualified personnel and all the necessary equipment. Even though you are young, I can assure you that no danger threatens your or your future child's well-being. As to your family situation, we can provide counseling services..."

"Oh yeah," I cannot keep irony out of my voice, "Counseling services will sure help. You clearly don't know my aunt."

"In the worst case scenario, we have special quarters for young mothers. You will have all possible care..."

I zone out of the conversation thinking hard and desperately. Right, this is District 13. Two thirds of the population infertile. Of course, they will take care of me and my child. MY child. To listen to her, I might be the only pregnant woman in the whole district. Probably, I am. With all this bleak life underground. No fun in making love. I need a really good reason that would make her see why my pregnancy should be interrupted. Perhaps, I should have told her the child's father was ill with some incurable disease? Too late now. She'll see me through. Although I try to keep my ground and breathe deeply, the panic slowly creeps in. MY child. Oh no. Oh no. I don't want it. Why should it happen to me of all people?

I interrupt the doctor in the middle of her compassionate speech.

"Whatever! I don't want this child. I didn't love its father. I will hate it as well. You cannot make me!"

Her stare hardens.

"Why don't we discuss this later when you calm down and..."

"I don't want any more discussions!" I almost scream, "Don't you hear me? I don't want to be pregnant. You can't make me!"

"Very well," she sighs and stands up in front of me, "If you insist, I'll explain. I am sure you are aware of the situation in our district. Abortions are prohibited since we value each newborn child."

"That shouldn't concern me. I am not even a citizen..."

"Oh, but you are," she contradicts, "You've been accepted as a refugee. You've been granted an automatic citizenship. Finally, you live here, therefore, you must comply with our rules."

I shake my head as if having one of Rote's seizures.

"No. No! You just don't get it, do you? I'm young. I'm still a teen. My whole life is ahead of me. How can you expect me to ruin it so? This is inhumane."

"Killing a not yet born human being is inhumane," she corrects me coldly, "However, you did not let me finish. If by the time your baby is due you do not change your mind, the child will be adopted. There are many couples here who crave for such happiness. Naturally, we are not going to force you to bring the child up, although I do hope you'll come to your senses in the next couple of months."

I fall silent. My instinct tells me any further arguments will be useless. This woman will not be swayed. Neither her, nor anyone else in this damned underground tomb we are buried alive in.

As I am contemplating my options, and the doctor watches me suspiciously, I remember something else. Haymitch being forced into sobriety because their rules prohibit alcohol consumption. They closed him in and put him on medications clearly against his will, even though he is important for the rebellion. What are they going to do with some stubborn girl who wants to get rid of her child then? Place me into solitary confinement for the next eight months or so? Or worse? A chill runs up my spine. I have to be careful. So very careful now. It's not only my future that is at stake. It's my freedom and sanity.

I do not even have to fake my tears. I am so terrified that they are already running down my cheeks.

I make a sorrowful face of a repentant sinner and hold the doctor's hand.

"I'm so sorry. I... I don't know what I am talking about. It's so unexpected... I... I guess I am just scared. My aunt, and all... and then, you know, doctor, we broke up with my boyfriend just before the bombing. I never even thought..."

I go on in the same half-witted manner to persuade the woman that I have no intention of getting rid of the child on my own. I am just a silly teen who is frightened of the new responsibility. It seems to work because she pats me on the shoulder, offers me some tranquilizer pill (which I spit out as soon as I leave her office), and finally lets me go confirming the date of the next appointment and making arrangements with the nurse to visit me each day, just in case, and the counseling services. She even agrees not to inform my relatives just yet which is good because if I have any luck at all, no one will ever need to know.

\- 3 -

No one suspects anything. Although Rote acts somewhat strangely. He stops joking around and watches me eat all of my breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In the afternoon, I go to the hospital, and they give me a vitamin shot, take some more urine and blood samples, weight and measure me regularly.

I feel like a pig raised for slaughter. Its owner is concerned for its well-being since he needs meat. No one cares for me because of myself. All they are interested in is this child. This completely unexpected surprise I have no idea what to do with. I wonder what they would say if they found out its father was a sadistic Peacekeeper? Probably would stuff me with more vitamins.

I continue working at the hospital. Taking nursing classes. No, I am still not particularly happy about the job. Yet, dealing with people who are in much worse physical or mental condition than myself seems to be the only thing I can do to distract myself from the subtle changes in my body and mind. "Distraction" is not the right word. More like watching these people helps me pull myself together. I am not like them. That means I can do better. That half-an-hour of the "sexual intercourse" in the bathroom scared the hell out of me. If I go on like that, I risk turning into a lunatic.

\- 4 -

Next time I see Haymitch is somewhat a couple of weeks after our nice talk at the hospital ward. So many things have happened since then, and I feel strangely disconnected from all of that. Hard to digest after so many years living from one reaping to another with almost nothing happening in between. The bombing. The rescuing of Peeta, that stray-eyed girl-victor from District 7, and another green-eyed girl-victor.

I am working at the wing with chronic patients, so I would not even know what is going on, if it were not for the doctors' new idea. It seems that a large part of Peeta's rehabilitation process is to surround him with people who cannot evoke Katniss-related memories.

That's how it happens that I am assigned to his ward. After Delly, I am considered as the most likely catalyst of positive emotions because I am a kid from the merchant section and his former playmate. Being in a nursing program is a plus. No difficult responsibilities. Just bringing food and chatting with him about school, bakery, and painting. My doctor is doubtful at first because stress is not recommended for pregnant women. Peeta's doctors and I have to fight with her. The truth is I do want to see Peeta. If I am a girl from his past before Katniss, he is also a boy from my past before Haymitch.

On my first day I am warned not to talk much. Just smile, be friendly and go about my business while they watch his reaction. Which is just as good because as I step into the ward and try to connect this pale lip-biting hazard-looking boy with the Peeta I knew, I choke on my greetings.

He does remember who I am and what games we played after school but he is so gone and lost. It is as if we were talking not about his own life but some imagined story out of some book we both have half-forgotten. He is not sure of anything, and he seems so far away from all this that for a moment I almost envy him. I would have liked to forget my life in the past. Towards the end of my shift though, my envy melts into dismay and pity as Peeta tells me in strangely strained voice,

"I don't know what to believe in anymore. I don't even know if you, Delly and everyone around are true or mutts like her."

The medical assistant whispers in my earphone an order to retreat. Instead, I come back to Peeta's bed. I badly want to hug him but he flinches even as I approach closer. So, I just hold out my hand,

"Most important is that you know what you are. Once you figure that out, it gets easier with the rest."

He looks at my hand as if not sure what to do with it, so I just pat the blanket next to his strapped arm.

"For me, you are my classmate and my friend. That's how I think about it."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he says.

I falter. It dawns upon me that I do not know since I've never really had a friend. Someone I could be close to. Like Katniss and Gale are. Yet, I carefully think it over and answer,

"A friend is a person you like. A person you can talk to and... share things, you know."

"Everyone here seems to want to talk to me and ask things," he says, "Yet somehow I do not feel like they are my friends."

"Well, you must want it yourself... to talk and share," I falter. His questions make me confused and uneasy. For some reason, I feel like a cheat. As if I failed him somehow.

His eyes go blank.

"The only thing I want now is to be left alone, and for people not to watch me day and night," he says and turns his back towards me.

As I walk out of the room, I see Haymitch in the corridor. Talking to Peeta's doctor. Although he does not look in my direction, his presence gives me a jolt, and I hurry to leave not even waiting for the medical assistants to talk things over and decide on the plan for my next visit.

The only thing I have not considered is that Haymitch is actually going to be here. Coming in and out of the adjoining room that has a one-way glass wall to check on his former tribute. Somehow I got an impression he was more into Katniss, and I have not even thought that in these busy days full of revolution and the Mockingjay he will find time or need to keep track of Peeta's recovery.

\- 5 -

I do not have a heart to refuse to visit Peeta now. It would seem I am just like everyone else. People who want to come and talk to him, to talk about things it hurts even to think about, and then leave back to their quarters without a second thought once their shift is over. He is an object of medical or political interest for everyone but us three, Haymitch, Delly, and me.

I do not know about Katniss. They say she left for District 2. Leaving her troubles behind for a new task is probably just as convenient for her as it is for Haymitch to turn his back at me. That is what they share in common. Both do not like people whom they once hurt. For she did hurt Peeta. Maybe, not now in her current function as a mutt, but in those few months after the 74th Hunger Games. I did not understand back then why he faltered and looked a bit lost each time she went past the bakery. I do understand it now.

When I talk to Peeta, it somehow helps me no matter how weird he acts. I try to focus on him so hard that I almost forget myself, the yet invisible baby that grows inside me, and the fact that at this very moment Haymitch might be watching us. However, as I find out very soon, I do not need to worry about that. After our first encounter, Haymitch probably finds out my schedule and makes sure our visits do not coincide. I do not see him there again. Not even once.

Peeta gets somewhat used to me. Sometimes he watches me drawing. Sometimes I tell him my aunt's fairy tales making sure to omit all the monsters, dark-haired girls, and hunters.

Yet that haunted look in his eyes is always there. From time to time he stops whatever we have been doing and listens as if for the distant footsteps of a mutt. His gaze becomes vacant or worse fierce and fearful at the same time.

He still asks questions. Many questions I have no idea how to answer.

The "how do I know that you all are not mutts" question is among his favorites, but there are others just as tough.

"Why did you like me before? Yes, you say I was nice, friendly, and always shared some cookies with you. So, you liked me for what I did for you? Then, you are lying when you say you like me now? I am not nice, not friendly, and I have no cookies."

or

"They say Katniss loved me. Does loving someone means hurting that person? Then, why do they say it is good? Would you yourself want to be hurt?"

or even worse

"What's the point of all this?"

Each time I walk out of his ward slightly dizzy and slowly come back to the reality. It feels both me and Peeta are the patients under the doctors' watch. I am yet to find out who of us both is incurable.

**\- 6 -**

For the first three weeks or so, I do not do anything to get rid of the child. With the nurse and the doctor getting in touch with me almost daily, I have a strong suspicion I might be under some special surveillance. If things do not work out the way I want them at my first attempt, I do not want to be seized and put under the lock.

However, as time goes on, with the bombing, the three tributes arriving, and my exemplary behavior, the doctor gradually loosens the reins.

So, one evening I decide to try. I lock myself in the shower at the designated time and fill in the tub with the hot water. It hurts like hell. My skin burns and I bite the inside of my mouth not to scream. Ideally, I should have been adding the hot water gradually but I do not have time. It is fifteen minutes only until the next person's turn.

All the week after I hurt all over, and rough District 13 clothes are extremely painful. Then, my skin starts to peel off. It is good we all wear long-sleeved shirts and pants. No change in my condition though, and I do not have any courage to repeat my attempt.

Late in the evening, just before the curfew, when the corridors are mostly empty, I ramble around until I find the little side staircase that leads to the block - one level below - where the propo team sometimes holds their daily meetings. No one is going to be in so late at night, but if the patrol asks me what I am doing there, I can always say I was looking for Katniss to tell her the last news about Peeta. The former classmate and dear friend, that sort of things.

I linger at the top of the steep metal stairs and peer into the opening. It is dark downstairs, and I am actually a little scared. It is not that easy to throw myself down knowing that I might as likely as not break my neck.

For two or three times, I am about to jump and then, at the very last moment, instinctively grip the railing. For my fourth time, I close my eyes, but as I about to plunge forward, one of the doors downstairs unexpectedly slides open, and the bright light nearly blinds me.

Unprepared, I draw back so that whoever that might be won't see me, lose my balance, and then, I am plummeting off the stairs for real, painfully bumping into each corner, blooding my knees and elbows. The man who has opened the door at such an inconvenient time catches me half way through, which is just as good since I would have probably ended up splitting my head open if not worse.

Another man probably distracted by the noise comes out of the conference hall.

"Who's there, Haymitch?" he calls out to my savior.

My head throbs. My back seems to be one giant bruise. My right leg is completely numb and hurts like hell. I squint up at Haymitch who still holds me without even looking at me. The sleeve of his shirt is smeared with blood trickling down my chin.

"The girl who helps the nurses," he answers calmly, "The one who takes care of Peeta Mellark."

Right. Peeta. What was my alibi again?

The man - I recognize Plutarch Heavensbee's heavily set frame - watches me in surprise.

"Oh yes, I do know you. Liana or Lia, is it? What happened? Did the Mellark boy attack you?"

I almost cry out in pain as Haymitch releases me, and I am trying to stand on my own.

"No, sir. I... tripped on the stairs. It's rather dark here. I am fine though."

"Are you quite sure?" Mr. Heavesnbee looks over Haymitch and me with a curious expression on his face.

"Yes, sir, I apologize for disturbing you. I was just looking for Katniss to tell her about how Peeta had spent his day."

"Katniss?" Mr. Heavensbee raises his brows, "She should be in her compartment as far as I know."

"I must have misunderstood something, sir," I explain lamely, "I thought she was at the meeting. She told me so."

All the while, Haymitch has been keeping silence, and I don't dare to look at him anymore. He might think I came here after him and fulfill his promise of getting me under the arrest. After that episode at the hospital, I won't be too surprised.

"Oh well," Plutarch Heavensbee is still watching me, "So, how is our Peeta today? I did not have an opportunity to check on him yet."

"What?.. Oh, he is a little bit better," I say feeling more and more uncomfortable next to the two men, "He was talking to me about that school play we once staged. Katniss was singing in that play. I thought that might be a good sign, and Katniss would want to know... I guess I'll have to tell her tomorrow. I am sorry. I need to go now to get to my compartment before the curfew."

"You'd do well if you visit the nurse station," Heavensbee remarks, "Perhaps, we'd better call someone to help you get there?"

"No, I'm fine. Really. Just a few scratches."

To demonstrate my agility, I attempt climbing up the stairs, but my right leg immediately buckles up under my weight, and it is so painful that I start to see floaters and stars.

Haymitch gives me quite a nasty look and says evenly,

"I'll take her back to the hospital wing. We are just about done for today anyway, and I was going to check on Peeta."

"What? Please, no."

That's right. He takes no heed of me. As always. And Heavensbee is already by the elevator.

Great. Just great. Surely, my doctor will find everything out and I am in for more tests and check-ups, if not worse.

As me and Haymitch exit the elevator and Heavensbee is on his way up, I bravely try to hop on one leg.

"Now, I don't have a whole night ahead of me," Haymitch snarls, and quite unceremoniously picks me up.

I do not say anything. I still remember his warning. I bite my lip trying not to whimper as carries me into the emergency room.

"What happened?" the nurse exclaims.

"Don't you see for yourself? Curiosity nearly killed the cat."

As I am sitting in the hospital ward - Haymitch long gone, and the nurse putting a plaster cast on my leg - I am sizzling with rage. I can't believe I am still hurting over Haymitch Abernathy. What can he and his surly moods possibly matter now when my life is crumbling apart?

\- 7 -

I see Haymitch again a month later at the wedding of my cousin's teen crush Finnick Odair and the green-eyed girl named Anne. I go there grudgingly. My dress is old and sketchy-looking. My leg is barely out of its cast and I have it in a plastic support. At least, my belly does not show yet. If I did not know for sure, I would have never believed I could be pregnant. I am almost the same, if anything, even skinnier from all this vomiting and the District 13 meager diet.

I do not want to see the smiling happy face of the bride. Not when my own future is so dark and fuzzy. Yet, I promised Peeta to be the witness of his cake's success. So, here I am at the event, and after an hour or so I even start to like it. Seeing so many people doing something else together besides working, eating, or planning a rebellion.

In a little while I even venture a dance and then another hand in hand with some guy whose name I do not even know. I am spinning around and laughing. Even with the walking brace, I have more dancing partners than any other girl on the dance floor, or so it seems.

It is when I am dancing that I first feel it. A soft almost timid pulsing inside of my stomach. I stop in my tracks and break free from my partner. I push my way out of the stuffy room and along the corridor past the chatting and laughing people. I do not quite understand what's going on with me. I want to cry and laugh at the same time. Most of all though I want to be out... Out of this burrow. I do not care if I get killed. I cannot go on like this... I just can't!

I meet Haymitch on my way to the upper quarters. Hopelessly hoping to escape now when everyone is so preoccupied with this wedding. Why didn't I make friends with some of the guards? Anything but to get outside even for just one minute... I stop as I see Haymitch, still somewhat yellow-skinned and thin but definitely looking better than last time. He looks down at me and - to my surprise - says quite good-naturedly,

"Why, girl, I was just wondering what the odds are of you bumping into me yet again."

My child's heart beats in me, and my own heart echoes it wildly.

He probably notices something, or maybe it's just me having become so thin and hollow-eyed. His face expression changes to somewhat concerned.

"What's wrong?"

I cannot even speak for I am afraid I might choke. I manage to whisper bitterly,

"Oh Mr. Abernathy, have you forgotten that you forbade me to talk to you?"

Once safe and alone in the next corridor, I bend over and hit my own belly. Again, and yet again. Why must it all have happened to me? What's the matter with me? Why can't I hate them both - this unwanted child, and this man who does not want me?

**\- 8 -**

I have no hate in me. Apparently I have no pride as well.

The day comes when I go to see Peeta off right before his departure to join the Capitol squad. As I try to smile reassuringly, my insides twist into a tight knot.

Where are they taking him? He is so apparently still unwell. So unlike the old Peeta. His face is pale grayish, and he bites his lips. He even moves slower as if dazzled or - what is more likely - drugged.

I hug him, and pat his back, and wish him good luck. Make him promise he will come back, but all my and his words ring hollow. The air is heavy with distrust and the ghost of the mutt Katniss.

I do not even get to spend much time with him. The doctors and the military personnel ask me out as they give Peeta final instructions and perform the last check-ups.

I linger next to the hovercraft section until I hear the dull far-away buzzing, and then, people are spilling out of the elevator. Haymitch Abernathy is the last one. He walks past me - huddled in the grey uniform, tired, and sober. For an outsider, he would probably seem his usual surly self, but I perceive a shade of something else under the facade of his gloom.

One of the leaders of this revolution. All of his fellow victors long dead and gone. The only two people in the world he cares about are gone to war - both irretrievably damaged and vulnerable, each in their own way. Too much going on in his mind right now to think about one more foolish teen. Too much is on the stake. True, he was unkind to me, but who was ever kind to him? He hurt me, but they hurt him more at the arena and after. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth.

So, in the end, it is again my instinct that leads me to do one thing I believe might be of help.

\- 9 -

In the evening, I sneak along the corridors in Rote's old pants and standard-grey hoodie. Both at least three sizes large but completely conceal my face and body. It is better this way since I do not want any of my relatives - or worse, my doctor, - know where exactly I am going to spend my night. Whoever sees me passing by, might take me for a skinny teenage boy - and quite a few of them - almost all from District 12 - dart around.

Not at this time though. The corridors are almost empty and bright with the blinking sickening greenish-yellow light. The only people who are still up are the medical and military personnel and with so much going on in the Capitol, they give no second thought about me up so late. No one even stops me on my way.

I have a passing thought that he is not going to be there. Who knows when these men deciding the fate of the Panem sleep (if they do at all). But when I quietly knock, the door to his quarters opens almost immediately.

Haymitch Abernathy's dark-rimmed hollow eyes fall on me - standing there in my hoodie.

It is only this very brief moment.

Us looking at one another.

The light bulb blinking.

Then, he steps aside so that I may enter, and I am not even surprised at being welcome. I think that I - or rather, my guts - must have known it along just like I knew he would let me in when I was heading to his house on that last night before the last reaping.

The standard cot with crumbled sheets, a desk, a closet, and two chairs. Nothing more. No personal things. The room looks not lived in. Empty. Devoid of colors. Devoid of warmth.

The man who is standing in front of me is not much different from his dwellings.

He looks as if he feels permanently chilled. Still thin, or rather haggard.

He says not unkindly.

"You look a mess. Life here doesn't agree with you either, does it?"

As he says this, I notice how worn out I myself feel. It's too much for just anyone. Not for the lack of sleep only. For the lack of sunshine and warmth. For the lack of a normal life instead of this almost 18-years long dragging on or being scared out of my wits.

His stare is fixed on me, and I want to crouch and cover myself. I am skinny. My stomach does not show quite yet, the uniform is too large, and still...

Suddenly he reaches out and touches the side of my face.

"Where did this come from?"

I have almost forgotten. The traces of cigarette stubs Aelius had entertained himself with. There are more of those down there on my stomach and breasts. This particular burn on my cheekbone is there because I'd been trying to wriggle out, and Aelius wanted to give a lesson of obedience.

I shrug my shoulders. To explain means to talk about the rest.

Haymitch does not ask anything more and - at last - his stare does not bore into me any longer.

His hand slides to the nape of my neck and down between my shoulder blades. It is warm and firm.

"Don't worry, once everything is over, they'll fix it," he says suddenly, "When I got back from the Games, I had a scar on my stomach - that big of a size," he measures out the width with his index finger and thumb, "And now - look."

As he lifts up his shirt, his paunch casually protruding over the waistband of his trousers, I indeed see no trace of the wound.

Haymitch winks at me probably noticing my flabbergasted face expression, and I cannot help but snort back. This makes me feel so much better about myself. About everything. And that is when I almost fall apart. Almost tell him. Almost. But no... That is not why I came here for. He has his own burden. He does not need to bother with my problems.

"I'm glad you are not angry at me anymore like you were all this time," I say.

"That's where you are mistaken."

I look at him expecting to see his usual mock frustration or annoyance. Instead, I see something very different. Something that makes me ask.

"Peeta?"

And he responds,

"Don't."

Peeta was my classmate. He is my friend. I have sat hours and hours next to his bed in the hospital wing. I have the right to know what is going on. But there is such a strained urgency in Haymitch's voice. Danger. High voltage. Do not come closer. Do not ask questions. Don't.

The roles have switched since the day I have been sitting in his kitchen with my black eye a little bit more than a year ago.

I do the same thing that I did then.

I throw my arms around his neck.

Only this time it is not about me at all.

The communicator buzzes, and after a brief glance at it, Haymitch makes it for the door.

"You can sleep here," he says without looking at me, "There is no need to go out after the curfew."

"When will you be back?" I bite my tongue because this is clearly not my business.

He lets it go.

"Just slam the door shut when you leave, will you?"

When he is gone, I crumple under the blankets fully dressed. As I lay with the greenish light on and slowly inhale his smell, I finally feel at home. At peace with myself. Just for this little while.

It is good I trusted my instincts and came to see him because this night becomes Haymitch's last night at District 13. The next day the Capitol kills Katniss Everdeen.


	14. Chapter 14 Ashes

\- 1 -

We are in the district of rebels, and yet, for the next couple of weeks, I am least aware of what is going on. It does resemble yet another Hunger Games. On the large screen in the dining hall, the desperate reports from the agonizing Capitol are jumbled together with the fierce proclamations from the rebels, and over the bloodbath by the Capitol's cornucopia (aka President Snow's mansion), our ever resurrecting Mockingjay is burning. The spark that has once ignited the flame of Second Rebellion is now devouring herself.

Meanwhile, the day comes when my condition becomes way too obvious even for my aunt Nola who is still in a haze since my uncle's death. To my and Rote' surprise, my aunt acts as if she has always expected something like that to happen. She nods and chuckles to herself,

"Neither shame nor reason. Just like your mother."

That is when I find out about my father. An orphan just out of the Seam community house. Him and my mother barely of age. My mother's parents were outraged, and her older sister tried to ignore her new relatives ever since. She was quite successful at that until the young couple - struggling to make ends meet - fell victims to the epidemic raging through the Seam, and my aunt and uncle Rote had a choice of leaving the child - me - in the community house or bringing it up with their own children. It appears I have a lot to thank them for.

"What was he like?" I cannot help but ask, and my aunt snorts.

"Just your ordinary grimy kid. Had just enough sense to knock up the merchant's daughter ruining whatever good opportunities she might have had. Apparently not enough decency to at least try and earn some money for his family like Everdeen did."

She falls silent as if leafing through the old scrapbook in her memory.

"Back at twelve, Rote forbade me any contact with your mother and her husband. Not that I really wanted to... There had been that really nasty story with your father's family somewhat eight or nine years before you were born... right, the same year when Abernathy won the Games. Not sure how it happened... I personally think that must have been an accident. The Head Peacekeeper we had back then was obsessed with punishing the trespassers, rebels, and that sort of thing. So anyway, folks say your father's older sister was shot down by the Peacekeepers alongside the Abernathy family. That's how your father became an orphan because his parents had no longer been in the picture by that time. It was mostly his sister who's been taking care of him."

I am so overwhelmed by the news of my family that Haymitch's name does not ring a bell at first.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" I say angrily, "He was my father. I had the right to know who he was."

My aunt shrugs, "What was the point? It was already bad enough that we had to put up with the Seam offspring in our house. The only way I could really manage was to forget you were anyone else's but my sister's child."

"I did not know Abernathy had his family killed off by the Peacekeepers," Rote interferes.

"They also shot my father's sister," I add quietly.

"Well, like I said, these were bad times," my aunt sighs, "Anyway I do not know much about the business. You should have asked your father. He was Haymitch's classmate after all..."

The memory of my uncle brings about fresh tears in her eyes, and for the rest of the day, my aunt is pretty much deaf to the world.

There is a lot of things to think about this evening as I am making clothes for my future child.

I think of my father as one of those dark-haired grey-eyed Seam boys I used to go out with. Was my mother his first girl ever? Was it love at the first sight? It is hard for me to imagine how it must have felt for my mom to move to the Seam. For some reason, Mrs. Everdeen's dejected face - the face she used to have after her husband's death and before Katniss won the Games -stands before me.

I think of Haymitch's family who had died such a violent death. That is probably where that silly legend about his girlfriend's ghost hunting the Meadow runs from. But why? Did our district indeed have rebels even then? What about my father's sister? How old was she even?

There is something else that is kicking around my head... something I cannot quite get hold of...

I cannot help but think of Aelius as well. I used to hate him but I no longer do. He said he was the only child in the family. I wonder if his parents are still alive, and whether they are mourning him.

\- 2 -

My daughter chooses to come out into this world in the worst time possible. The winter is bitterly cold. The upper compartments damaged by the bombing get frosty and slippery. The Sun might have as well been blown up. We do not catch a sight of it for weeks and weeks. All the colors have been drained but gray and greenish-yellow. Gray uniforms and walls. Greenish-yellow lights and people's faces.

District 13 mourns their President. Everything has changed overnight. The former District 12 citizens are now looked at with certain animosity and suspicion. We are not the only victims anymore, nor are we the district that has given rise to the symbol of the sacred rebellion. The Mockingjay has no more value for the bitter District 13 people.

I am hibernating. I have become so slow and lazy that often I do not get out of my bed for days. The vitamins do not help, and what I see in the bathroom mirror looks just like a Morphling. Night after night I see the same dream. Another bomb falling on District 13. Burying us alive. Forever underground. One night this dream is so vivid I can feel myself gasping for air. I wake up with a start and that's when I feel the first pain.

I do not suspect anything. It is still more than two months away from my due date, isn't it? I get dressed and walk fast along the long narrow corridors, up the stairs and elevators until I reach the passage leading outside. The soldiers on duty look at me in surprise, but we are not in the state of war anymore, and technically people can go in and out as they please - even at night. Whether because old habits die hard or because there isn't much outside save the rubble, but only a few actually take on this opportunity though.

As I stand by the entrance and look up in the black and foggy sky and down into the black pits and fallen trees covered under a thick layer of snow, somehow I feel as if I am still deep underground. In the mass grave. Probably, my baby has a similar opinion and is getting desperate because suddenly I am starting having cramps, and something warm trickles down my leg.

The soldiers figure out what is going on much faster than me. They get me inside, frantically dial the emergency number, and in twenty minutes or so I am in a blindingly white ward. My legs wide apart, the nurses swarming around, ripping off my wet clothes, and stabbing me with the needles.

For some reason, I do not want anyone around. I want to be left alone. Completely alone in the semi-darkness. Let the pain be. It somehow connects me to this strange little creature that is now tearing through my tissues, squishing and pushing its way out. I try to kick one of the nurses. I try to explain. But they just give me one more shot that makes everything blurry and unreal.

The creature starts screaming barely out. Very red and dripping wet. Still connected to me through the umbilical cord. I squint to see its face through the haze, but all that is visible to me is the deep red-bluish color. I suddenly remember Aelius's mutt reaching out to me and all the madness of the first months trying to get rid of the fetus, and the memory brings me out in a cold sweat. I try to wriggle out of the nurse's arms and snatch the baby because I need to know... Since I cannot see very well, I need to touch it to make sure it is undamaged...

Instead, I get another shot that plunges me into darkness...

\- 3 -

My doctor says I am lucky not to end up with kidney failure since my body is so emaciated, and babbles on about potential danger of yet another pregnancy until I am well and safe into my twenties. She even supplies me with pills just in case. I let her twittering go. I do not foresee any need of these pills. I am through with men.

My daughter is not very friendly. Neither she is sociable. All day and night long, she sucks her bottle and falls asleep. Her eyes closed and her cheeks moving. Not at all curious to get to know me or the world around her. Then she wakes up and screams until she gets her bottle back. In between, she pukes and clearly hates anyone who is not a source of food. She screams when Rote takes her on his lap, and she grimaces when my aunt Nola curiously peers into her cradle.

"The child looks nothing look like our kin. Red-haired and bad-tempered," she grumbles, "Rote was not yet five weeks old and already smiling. Just beamed at me. And Grita..."

She falls silent and gloomily retreats. I know I am again the one to blame. For giving birth to a sullen unwanted child. For not naming this child in memory of my cousin. For not giving her any name at all. For some reason, I cannot bring myself to.

It is the middle of March. Does not make much of a difference for the underground people. The news on TV have become extremely flavorless and colorless. The soldiers marching up and down the Capitol. The citizens dressed in grey clothes. President Paylor in her military outfit. Once or twice I see the handsome military official who once was the Seam miner Gale Hawthorne. Nothing is being mentioned about Katniss, Peeta, or Haymitch. As if the Mockingjay has indeed nobly perished in the fight.

After listening to the new president reading off the list of the new rules and reforms, I get terribly sleepy.

"At least, during the old regime, they had some fun going on, like dancing and music."

"Yeah, the Games were definitely fun," Rote says quietly.

I know that he is right, and that the change is all for the better. It's just that I have taken no part in this change, and my life seems so wasted.

\- 4 -

One-by-one people return to what is left of District 12. Surprisingly enough, my aunt Nola is the one of our trio who is the most eager to go back. Her arguments are ridiculous. The cellar is deep enough, so there still might be some goods and cash in there enough to start up the new business. In truth, she simply misses my uncle. Hoping beyond all hope he is alive and well.

Something stirs in me too as snow is melting away. No one is there for me at District 12, but no one will be missing me here either.

Yet, here is the thing. While I am free to leave, the benevolent dictators here at 13 - my doctor is one of them - decide that it is not healthy for a newborn baby to live in the unsanitary conditions without pediatricians readily available, plus the baby's mother is not yet of age, so I do not have any say in the matter. This is their official explanation but I suspect that their real agenda is to simply get their hold of the baby for her to grow up into a breeding cow for future generations of the epidemic-driven emaciated district.

I watch my daughter sleeping for hours. Trying to find my features in her tiny pinched face. Seeing Aelius instead. Yet, she is somehow special. The first human being ever to belong to me. I am her mother. Just like my mother was mine once.

I watch her sleeping, and Rote is watching me.

Once he says,

"You can't leave her. I understand. I'll stay with you here for a year or two. My mum can go to District 12 on her own if she wants to."

Yet, what I know for sure is that there is no way I am staying any longer. No way I am leaving my daughter to grow like potato in this underground hole. Children are not vegetables. They need sunlight and freedom.

I finally make up my mind when in the middle of April, Gale pays a business visit from District 2 where he is currently working on some military or government project. All it takes from me is a somewhat awkward explanation and then a short written message that Gale promises to deliver to the addressee, and then, it is all about waiting yet again. Waiting and watching my red-haired and blue-eyed baby who is so unlike anyone from our district.

\- 5 -

It is one chance in a hundred, and yet, somehow I am not particularly surprised when one June morning, I receive the visitors. The tall burly man in the military uniform and the delicate woman who have just arrived on a small business aircraft. Apparently, the former Capitol system supporters are still somehow able to land on a cushy job in the new government.

The woman - her mascara running down her smooth botox cheeks - is the trusting one. In her eagerness, she almost snatches the baby away from me. The man whose son and granddaughter are his spitting image is far more reticent. He stares me down with that familiar cold blue-eyed arrogance that evokes not so pleasant memories.

After the first few moments, I am forgotten as if I am no longer in the room. I sullenly watch the baby drooling all over the woman's fancy coat and listen to the snatches of their with another visitor - a lawyer or consultant, whoever he might be.

"Yes, definitely the DNA test..."

"Not that it's really necessary. Just look at the child..."

"What about the girl?"

"What girl? Oh right... that girl."

"You'll need to fill in the forms for adoption, but I assure you there should be no custody battle. The mother not yet of age... easy to overrun..."

A lot of talking. A lot of paperwork.

The baby screams her head off when the sharp needle pricks her skin...

At some point in the afternoon, I remain one-on-one with the woman who cautiously pats me on the shoulder, and in her Capitol-accented voice, implores me not to worry. It is going to be fine. The baby will have no need of anything. What was the little one's name again? Oh, she does not have one, does she?

I interrupt her twittering. After all, one doesn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the woman already has a Lucretia or worse Agrippina on her mind.

I point at her coat, her earrings, and high-heeled shoes.

"Can you still get these in the Capitol?"

She breaks off in the middle of the sentence and watches me derisively-pityingly.

"But of course. If you tell me your size, I'd be happy to send you some nice clothes. As to the earrings, here, take them. And the coat... Would you like to take it as well? I'd be only too happy to share..."

Right, a simple-minded provincial selling her daughter for some bling - that's who I am to her.

As the lawyer prepares the papers, I peer at myself in the small hand mirror - a pale lank-haired pleb in a fashionable light-blue summer coat. The woman even dabbed some lipstick on me.

"Can I ask you a favor?" I say to the red-haired blue-eyed man who is about to become the future Agrippina's (or better still Aelia's) grandfather and legal guardian.

He frowns at me as if I were a pet that has suddenly found its voice.

"What is it, dear?" his lawyer asks somewhat impatiently. Right, they need me to sign these papers.

I put away the pen they have given me, take off the woman's coat, wipe off the lipstick, and hold a long pause as the District 2 residents follow my each move with their eyes.

I approach the woman who now holds my daughter and I see her lower jaw tightening and her knuckles whitening slightly. She lets me take the baby though. The last time that I don't have to ask for anyone's permission to hold my own child.

"You know... I could have been your daughter-in-law."

"You're of course always welcome to visit us," the woman says tensely.

I watch the sleeping Agrippina-Aelia-or whatever her name is going to be. Her red eyelashes fluttering. Her nose wrinkled. The hint of future freckles on her fair skin.

The truth is that I have not wanted her, and if it were not for the District 13's strict policies, she would not have even existed. So, it is not like I have any right to keep her now. I have already disowned her by asking the doctor for an abortion, then scalding myself, and hurling myself down the staircase. The only way I can somehow redeem myself and make up for everything I have wronged her by is now to do what will be right.

So, I give the baby back to the woman and turn away.

"Do you have the Capitol cigarettes?" I ask the woman's husband, "Those that your son used to smoke?"

They watch me as if I were a lunatic.

"The cigarettes?" the lawyer stutters, "What is she even talking about?"

Aelius's father narrows his eyes and pulls a pack out of his pocket.

I smile at him brightly,

"Thank you, sir. You see, smoking is prohibited here at 13, and all this time, I've been dying to have some."

He finally gives me a wry smile. So Aelius-like that it goes through me like an electric jolt.

"You could have mentioned this in your letter. I would have brought you more."

At least, unlike his wife, he does not make any false promises that they would send me anything I want later.

"That's okay. Rare pleasure is all the more valued."

As I stuff the pack into my own pocket - but not until I've taken a drag - and sign the papers - one after another without reading or looking at them, people in the room keep silence. Even the baby is not screaming for her milk bottle as if behind my back she has already been conspiring with her new glittering mom.

I cannot help but strike the last blow.

"Don't you want to know how your son died? I saw him dying. I can tell you."

My blow misses. The father must have trained to be a career in his youth.

"I already know all there is to know about it. My son died a hero."

A hero... a bully in charge of the impoverished and powerless citizens. Yet, I let it go.

"I had Aelius when I was well into my forties," the woman says suddenly, "The only child. The doctors spent years trying to help me. They were suggesting a surrogate mother..."

"Now, Oreta," her husband is clearly annoyed.

The lawyer hems and murmurs something about taking the signed papers back to the judiciary sector.

I turn half-way so as to catch a glimpse of the woman but not the small bundle wrapped in the District 13's gray blanket on her lap.

"Don't you fret, Oreta, you've got your surrogate mother after all."

\- 6 -

Rote almost breaks down. Holding me tight with his only hand. Saying over and over again.

"Why? Silly you...Why did you do this? How could they have even managed so fast? The authorities were supposed to consult us as your close relatives first? After all, you are not yet of age..."

"Why? Rebellion or no rebellion, power is still power," my aunt says cryptically.

I take Rote's hand off my shoulder.

"It doesn't make any difference. It's not about me. It's about my daughter and what is good for her."

\- 7 -

Delly is the only one who gives me a farewell hug - her pink face sad since I am the last of her school friends still around - and asks to keep in touch. If I ever need anything... If I might ever want to visit her... I promise I will. I smile and say "yes, for sure ", and I think to myself, 'Never again.'

We return to District 12 a couple of weeks later. "We" is my aunt Nola, Rote, a family of miners, and myself. My aunt starts sobbing having just stepped off the military track, which is the only source of transportation available for people on the move. The hovercraft fuel is too expensive to be wasted on such trifles as refugees going back home, so we sweat and get bruises all along the way through the bumpy road in the woods.

The district is eerily quiet and half-deserted. Where once rows and rows of wooden houses stood, now only black piles of half-rotten half-burnt logs and shingles lie. They are crimson in the light of sunset. As if still in flames.

"They say it's been worse at the beginning," whispers the miner's wife, "By now, they have at least brought most of the corpses and bones over there to the Meadow."

The first person I see as we helplessly ramble around what once has been our large store is Greasy Sae. She shakes her head watching my aunt Nola sobbing over the ruins.

"That much for being wealthy merchants. Well, you're always welcome in my shack. It sure ain't a palace, but at least, I've got a roof."

So, in the end, we settle down at her place - not that far away from the Victors' Village. The Seam people and merchants mingling together in the few new houses that still keep the scent of timber and fresh paint. Sae's granddaughter peers at us out of her corner like a nimble little animal. My aunt is so exhausted from travelling and crying, she falls asleep almost immediately. Rote and me are picking on Sae's supper.

"Well, it's not yet too late. Gonna check on the girl up there in the Village. Be back in half an hour or so. Would you watch the stove meanwhile?" says Sae.

"What girl?" Rote politely fakes interest, "Anyone we know?"

Greasy Sae looks at us quizzically.

"Well, who doesn't know her now, poor thing..."

\- 8 -

After Greasy Sae leaves, I sit very still for a while. So still I can almost hear my blood running through my veins and draining from my face. Rote is either brooding or dozing over his plate. My aunt coughs and turns restlessly in her sleep. Greasy Sae's granddaughter sucks on her finger and hums something unintelligible.

Did I expect Haymitch to be here? Was that why I came back to this desolate hateful district the only sight of which makes me think of Aelius's burnt face and my uncle's fists? Knowing that this might be my only chance, because no one of their trio would ever set foot in District 13. Not after what Katniss has done. If so, and if I indeed came here for him, why do I want to flee away so badly?

"Rote," I whisper so as not to wake up my aunt, "What shall we do?"

He stares at me blankly.

"We don't have our house or your father's money anymore."

"Neither does anyone else, " answers he.

"Do you think we could move to some other district? Like Gale or Mrs Everdeen? District 10 for instance? It is close to two ... we could work... we'd have plenty of food there since the Capitol doesn't rob them off anymore."

It is a crazy idea but it keeps me flushed and agitated. Our heads close to one another in the dusk. I am coaxing, and getting angry, and pleading with my cousin... And all the while as Rote is slowly getting more and more convinced that this is indeed the best solution for us, I know that I still have to see Haymitch. At least one more time.

As if this last encounter would somehow fill in this gut-sinking ever-expanding void I've felt deep inside me all the time since the District 2 military official took away his granddaughter.

**\- 9 -**

I work up enough courage somewhat two or three days later.

During this time, Rote and Greasy Sae manage to dig out the entrance to my uncle's cellar. Most of what is inside has burnt and crumbled down. Yet, they find a tin can where my uncle has been saving change from the customers to exchange it in the bank once a month, and packets of grain and white flour. We share the treasures. Rote takes the cash, and Greasy Sae gets the food which is still in shortage even with the trains between the districts moving more regularly.

As I am getting ready to leave, my aunt Nola is absent-mindedly stirring the pale soup on the stove. Since she saw the ruins of her house, she has been moving and talking as if in a dream. Not unlike Sae's granddaughter. I guess, living in the seclusion of her compartment in District 13, my aunt still somehow imagined the house undamaged and maybe even my uncle stepping out and barking at her, "Where the hell have you been for such a long time? Made me build this shack all over again from scratch." Something like that. People do have weird dreams. The more unrealistic these dreams become, the bleaker their lives are.

I walk fast up the hill. It is very hot, and the air is stuffy. Yet, now it is not only the coal dust. It is something worse. The smell of ash and decay... It gets a bit better once I climb the hill. I do not look back. I know what I will see. Lonely flashes of light in the dusk. In the place that was ablaze not so long ago.

The Victors' Village seems the same though. It is even not so desolate anymore. A couple of other windows except the trio's are well-lit. New Peacekeepers? Some of the citizens who were allowed to move in? I slow down as I get closer to the familiar residence with the same wild bushes by the front porch.

I decide to walk around before I knock on the door. Just in case Katniss and Peeta are visiting. Sae has told us that the three of them often spend their evenings making that album of memories. I do not want to meet with my former classmates right now. In fact, I am not sure I want to meet Haymitch either. It is something stronger than me that hurts, and throbs inside my chest, and flutters its wings like a large butterfly or a bird.

One of the wings brushes on my knee and suddenly, I feel a sharp pain in my ankle, and hear discontented hissing. I gasp, jump back on the porch, and try to beat off the skinny flustered goose that has popped out of nowhere and now tries to nip at my ankle, and cackles, and hisses like an overheated tea kettle. We probably raise a lot of noise because the light starts to flicker behind the dirty curtains. In a little while, the door opens, and Haymitch's hoarse voice shooes the deranged bird away.

We stand against each other. Me in my torn grey pants - still the District 13 uniform - and with my ankle bleeding. Him in his scruffy foul-smelling clothes. Not quite drunk, but far from being sober.

He does not say anything. Just stares at me as if I am some vision straight out of his not so rosy dream. Or a nightmare rather.

"The goose... You don't need any patrol-dogs or Peacekeepers in the Village anymore," I stammer.

"That's the whole point of keeping the bird," he shakes his head slightly as though emerging from under the water or just trying to sober up, "Well, girl, what brought you here so late? Not that I mind some nice company, especially if you have any liquor in your pocket like any good visitor should."

His tone is light with amusement. As if we have parted only yesterday.

I smile awkwardly and say something that I have not intended to mention. Something that clearly shows my vulnerability for him to make fun of me.

"I came because I couldn't help that. You see, we are leaving tomorrow. Off to District 10 with the next train."

His face is expressionless.

"Sounds like a good plan. Should be better than here at least," he says with polite indifference.

Somehow this indifference hurts much more than his irony. Again, it is him holding me at distance. It seems that everything I've ever done was to reach him one way or another. I apparently lost. I am no good at games. Any kind of games.

He watches me for a while and then says,

"Wait here."

I do what I've been told and stay on the spot, all the time trying to shoo away the hissing goose. When, Haymitch shuffles back to the door, he has a creased envelope in his hand. His voice and face expression does not allow for any disobedience.

"Here's some cash for you. Should be enough for the first couple of weeks at your new place."

I quickly step back and fold my arms around me tightly.

"No, I am not going to take this."

"Don't be a fool," he snaps, "You need money. I have some to spare. That's all there is about it."

I make another step back and shake my head violently again and again.

"No, I am not one of your many nieces."

"What many nieces?" he frowns, and then, as a glimpse of recollection flickers in his eyes, Haymitch suddenly starts to laugh, "Don't tell me you bought that softcore story I tried selling to Plutarch."

The goose apparently takes his laughter as a call for the new attack since it flaps its wings and reaches out to nip at my ankle.

This is the last straw...

Yet, as I turn and stumble down the gravel road, I hear Haymitch call after me,

"Good luck, little Lia."

This is the first time ever he has called me by my name. There is something in his voice... Something that makes me come back and look him straight in the eye. All of a sudden, I hear myself saying,

"I don't care how much of an a*** you are. If you only as much as say a word, I'll stay."

He shrugs and does not respond anything.

I guess his very silence is as an eloquent answer as one can hope for. I probably should feel bitter. Instead, I am rather sorry for him. I come closer, reach out, and touch the side of his face - very gently, with the tips of my fingers only.

"That's okay. You can't help for not wanting me."

He jerks away his head,

"Didn't I already tell you? It has nothing to do with you."

That's when I get angry.

"Well, maybe, it should have something to do with me after all! I came all the way here..."

"This is your problem, not mine," is all that he says.

The finality of this statement stops me in my tracks. He is right. Like everything else, this too has always been my fault and my problem. Time to grow up. I am not longer a teen to throw myself at him.

"I know. I've learnt how to take care of my problems by now."

He gives me a sharp look.

"What's that? What did you get yourself into this time?"

"You don't really want to know."

"Don't give me this s***. Come on, spit it out."

All my rage gone. Why not to tell him? What am I to lose now after all?

\- 10 -

After I tell Haymitch my story - full of 'What else could I have done?' and 'It's all for the better' - we sit side by side on the porch for a very long time. The sky is getting dark, and the first pale stars lighten up far above our heads.

Haymitch breaks the silence first.

"Well... if you call that taking care of the problem..."

"Aelius's parents promised I'd be able to see the baby any time," I say lamely, "Any time I visit District 2."

"Is that why you decided to move to ten?"

And I tell him what I could not bring myself to tell Rote.

"It's better for Aster that way. Look at me. What kind of a mother would I have been? What do I know about loving a child? It's not just something out of nowhere. Good mothers are born in the families whose members care for one another. One learns how to love in childhood. Children... they are not like adults. They are so needy, and I... I have nothing to share with her."

He does not respond. I see him watching me with a very strange expression on his face. Something in-between anger and pity.

We do not talk anymore. There is nothing left to say.

As Haymitch frowns, looks aside, and takes a swig from his bottle, I take a cigarette and a lighter out of my pocket, and then, I notice his soiled shirt is torn on the back as if he got caught on a nail.

"Let me go over your clothes before I leave," I ask unexpectedly for myself and close my fingers over the hole, "What's the point of looking and smelling like a bum and scaring off other people? The war is over, and the old Capitol is down."

"If you say so," suddenly he reaches out and in one swift move grabs my cigarette and lighter, and places them into his own pocket.

I do not protest - maybe, he wants to have a smoke too - but I am a bit surprised,

"You could have just asked. I don't mind sharing."

"Oh, you don't, do you?" and he stretches out his hand again with his palm wide-open.

"No, give me the pack," he says as I take out another cigarette for him.

"What? Can't you buy yourself some?" but I do what I was asked, "Glad, I could be of some help. I guess I'll be able to get more at ten."

He squishes the pack in his fist and says as-a-matter-of-fact,

"If I ever catch you having a smoke again, I'll make you eat the whole pack."

At first, I do not understand. I am sitting there gaping at him, as Haymitch straightens up with a painful grimace, rubs his back, and heads to the door without giving me as much as a second glance.

It is only when he says - still not looking at me, "Come around tomorrow once you see your folks off. The front door will be open. And yes, make sure you pick up my booze off the train. Greasy Sae will lend you her cart," that it slowly dawns upon me.

As I walk back towards Greasy Sae's dwellings, the ashes are silvery-white, softly glowing in the moonlight, and in this radiance, I feel weightless and shining through.


	15. Chapter 15 The Magic Kingdom Number 12

\- 1 -

Rote's smile is sad.

"No District 10 for us both then?"

"We've had our District 13, Rote," I answer. For some reason, I am ashamed to look straight into his face. It is as though I have somehow betrayed him.

"A fine replacement for sure," he sighs, "Well, little sis, I'll miss you."

"You don't have to go anywhere," I protest weakly, "It was my idea anyway. I can help you build the new house here."

"No, I actually liked your idea," Rote says, "I am fed up with life here," and as I look at him in surprise, he adds, "Nothing has seemed right anymore ever since Grita was gone and then, my arm... District 13 was no better. It's time to see what the world is like outside of the shell."

"But it's been exactly the same for me. If I only knew you felt that way. Back when I was a kid, that would have changed a lot for me to know that ..." I break off in mid-sentence because I am about to say something pathetic and old-fashioned. Something like "...to know that we are not only blood-kindred but also kindred souls after all."

Half-jokingly half-tenderly, he tugs at my hair.

"Yes, there seem to be a few things we have overlooked in each other."

\- 2 -

As I help my aunt pack their few belongings, she watches me in silence. I am glad that she does not bug me with questions. Whatever Rote has earlier told her, might have proved sufficient. It is only when I zip the bag close that she says, "You're a dark horse. Have always been."

As I do not respond, she goes on, "I guess we won't see you again."

"You are right, auntie."

"Auntie..." she mimics my voice, "To think of that. You've even wound old Abernathy round your little finger. Well, you've never fooled me, my dear. Don't you think I didn't suspect you were off the moment I closed the door to your room all these years?"

"That's an old story," I say, "But since we've come to this, why indeed? If you knew why did you lock my door? To soothe your conscience?"

"Maybe, I hoped you'd break your neck one day coming up and down that downspout and that would serve you right," she sighs, "Your uncle was beating you black and blue, but it never helped, did it? Once born a slut always a slut."

"Oh, shut up."

"Look at you now, so bold you are, Ma'am," she sneers, "I wish I knew though what it is between the two of you...Well, I guess, I'll never know the truth."

"The truth?" I want to slap this half-witted woman, "The truth that neither of you - uncle Rote or you - never cared about me? Never took pity on me? Even as a child? The only one who did care was the stranger whom you all stupidly hated like you once hated me. For no reason at all."

"What's there to take pity on? " she screams, "The changeling. Had to feed you, and get new clothes for you, and watch you grow up instead of my Grita. Those boys coming for you instead of her! Do you have any idea of what it's been like for me all these years?"

"Stop blaming me for her! " I yell back, " It's not my or Haymitch's fault that she wasn't smart like the Mockingjay and got herself killed for nothing."

She rushes to strike me, and I push her away, and then Rote goes in between us.

"Hush, mum, hush! Lia, please!"

As I tear away from him and run to the door, Rote catches up with me,

"Lia, please don't go," his eyes are deep and concerned, " I can't stand thinking of you staying behind. Are you sure that's what you want? Or is it just that you don't know any better?"

"She's a handful," my aunt chimes in. She has calmed down a bit, and tries to manage her disheveled hair, "She's lucky someone still wants her. If Abernathy ends up killing her off, well, be sure, she well deserved it."

\- 3 -

I see them off to the train station. I give Rote Haymitch's envelope thick with money, tell him to write, call and overall, keep in touch. I give him a thank-you-for-being-there-for-me hug as well. As the train blows a whistle, my aunt Nola unexpectedly breaks down and throws herself at me.

"Be a good girl," she sobs, "Please, don't forget to take care of your uncle's grave."

"What grave are you talking about, mum, it's all ruins and ashes?" Rote grumbles.

"You can stay if you want," I repeat lamely.

"No," my aunt jerks up her chin, "I won't stay unless I can help it. We are no one here now with no store and no social status. I might as well look after the cows at the place where nobody knows us."

Once more I see their pale faces in the compartment window, then, the train pulls away, and soon, for the very first time in my life, I am completely on my own. Standing at the empty train station. Still waving my hand.

No relatives to nag on me. No friends to gossip about me. No child to worry about. No one to burden me, and no one to hold me.

After a while, I turn my back on the direction the train had left to. I pick up my cart full of liquor bottles that arrived for Haymitch on that very same train and head back to the Victors' Village.

\- 4 -

In the fairy tales that my aunt used to read to Grita before sleep, the happy end comes immediately after the princess reunites with her prince, and together they live happily hereafter. Not so in our magic kingdom number 12.

The first evening when we are together in Haymitch's (and from now on mine as well, no matter how strange it may sound) house I serve dinner. I am not a very good cook, so I am not surprised Haymitch nips at his food rather unenthusiastically. Clearly more interested in the contents of the liquor box. I pour him a drink and seat myself opposite him.

"I'm not going to bug you for long, don't worry. It's only a few questions. Is it okay with you?"

He frowns, but nevertheless, says, "Ask away."

"You've never wanted me around, haven't you? What made you change your mind?"

I do not know what I expect to hear in response. Certainly not a declaration of love. Maybe something more in line with, "I don't seem to be able to get rid of you anyway". Yet, what he says instead makes no sense whatsoever.

"One goose more or less. What difference does it make at this point?"

"What do you mean?"

He waves me off.

"Next question."

"Would you please show me which of the rooms upstairs is the bedroom?"

"Any you take fancy in. They are all vacant."

I look him straight in the face, "Which one is YOUR bedroom?"

He sighs, "I usually don't get that far for my naps... "

"Okay, I will stay in the living room then."

"No."

I notice how quiet it is in here. One can hear every creak. Every rustle of wind through the half-open window.

"Why not?"

The explanation is brief. He does not want me by his side at nighttime or any other time. His idea of me living here is to keep the house in order, cook his meals, and make sure he always has his liquor in stock. A kind of a housemaid. No more than that. No strings attached.

I do not argue. Not now. I shuffle upstairs, go into the first vacant room, and fall asleep in between the moldy sheets - listening to Haymitch's heavy footsteps and clinging of bottles long after midnight.

When it is close to dawn, I wake up and tip toe back into the kitchen. Haymitch is still awake, but judging from the number of empty bottles, he is on the verge of being knocked unconscious.

As I walk in, he half-raises his head off the table and unsuccessfully tries to get up.

"Whuts the time? Breakfast already?" he mumbles. His speech is slurry, and his eyes are unfocused.

"Time for bed... Come on," I tug on his sleeve and try to haul him, and he swears and tries to push me away but keeps missing, and so we move on into the living room back to that old well-familiar coach.

I pull off Haymitch's stinky shoes telling myself I should really see about some new clothes for him as soon as possible, and bring the pillow and blanket from one of the bedrooms. As I lean over to tuck Haymitch in, he hiccups and suddenly grabs my head in a lock.

At first, I am panicking - all the memories of that night he came down at me with a knife vivid - but no, his intention is not to hurt or strangle me but rather to bring me closer. My nose flattened against his collarbone.

"Such a do-gooder," he is slurring his words, "Why is it that you're always asking for trouble as long as I know you? Always begging for someone to make use of you in their best interests?"

I know that in the morning he will not remember anything, and that gives me courage.

"I don't mind being used by you as long as you don't mind me loving you."

"You fool. What's there to love?"

The look in his bloodshot eyes is unexpectedly sober and somewhat pitying. His arm is still around my shoulders. I hear his heart pounding. It does not beat the same all the time. It goes a bit faster as I move to lay next to him. So I try not to move. I just lay there very quietly, and in a little while as the shadows grow lighter, and the dawn breaks in through the holes in the curtains, Haymitch's breathing slows down and grows into familiar snoring.

\- 5 -

More and more people are coming back to the district. As I go down to the store to get us some food, I sometimes get that look from the locals. Haymitch's reputation as a drunk and my own reputation as a promiscuous teen messing around with just about everyone from the schoolboys to the Peacekeepers has apparently survived the bombing and fire.

Upon meeting me on my third or fourth week of living in the Victors' Village, Greasy Sae invites me to her place. For a while, we talk about my aunt getting settled down at District 10, and how difficult it is with the food ration even though the trains between districts have become more regular. As I sip Sae's herbal tea and try to save the contents of my grocery basket from Sae's curious granddaughter, I cannot help but wonder whether Sae is just being friendly, or there is some hidden motive.

The latter turns out to be true. Right in the middle of me talking and mimicking my aunt at the train station, Sae unceremoniously holds me to the light and peers into my face. Then she frowns as if what she sees does not quite satisfy her.

"Always thought you look somewhat familiar. Who would have thought..."

I watch her somewhat defiantly, and she sighs heavily, "It ain't my business but someone's got to talk some sense into you, and your aunt doesn't strike me like a right type. Anyway, she's not even around."

I half-raise from my seat, "If you are talking about me living at Haymitch's place, you're right, it's none of your business..."

"Oh sit down," she barks, "I'm not the one to tell you off. I know you've got a mouthful right now. I just don't want you to screw it all up. That's all."

That's great. Another one to call me worthless.

"Hush, no one is attacking or blaming you," Sae says and pats on my hand.

"Thanks," I answer sarcastically.

"Be quiet now, I ain't got a whole day ahead of me."

"Me neither."

"All I'm saying is you've got to understand what you've led yourself into. The other two are like you. Young. They'll grow into one another, and if not, it's not the end of the world for either of them. But Haymitch is different. What he has been through... To think that I once knew him when he was just that little. Scavenging on my soup. Him and his younger sibling."

I fall quiet. Sae's granddaughter almost overturns my basket but even another bomb from the Capitol would not have made me move from my spot now.

"Did you know his family? How did it happen? Why did the Peacekeepers shoot them down?"

"I know just about everyone in this district both alive and dead, " she says as a matter of fact, "But I'm not going to tell you the tales of old times now. And also, just so you know, it might not be the best idea for you to bug Haymitch with questions either."

"I've already figured that much out."

"If you think it's hard for you now, it's likely only the beginning," Sae says, "You'll have to put up with a lot of s** but whatever you'll be through, remember, it sure is twice as hell for him. Don't screw it up 'cause he doesn't deserve any more trouble. "

That big lump in my throat is again choking me. I cough and say angrily, "I am not going to let him down, don't you worry. You needn't have told me that."

She chuckles and picks up my overturned basket, "Good. And don't hate him if he lets you down, okay? You're younger, so you have to be that tree that bends but doesn't break, do you understand me? Now, there, it's probably time for you to go and get your lunch ready."

Yet, I linger at her doorstep. Suddenly a wild guess pops into my mind.

"Sae," I say tremulously, "Can I ask you something?"

"What's that?" she frowns as if already expecting my question.

I quietly call the unknown girl's name that I have heard Haymitch say long ago - back that night when President Snow announced the rules of the third Quarter Quell.

Sae merely waves me off.

"I know she must have been his girlfriend, Sae, just tell me..."

"If you know why ask?" she starts pushing me outside, "Look, the butter in your basket is going to melt."

"Please... Who was she? What happened? Is she still living here? Have I ever met her?"

"Don't you worry. She's been out of the picture for more than 25 years by now," Sae answers grimly.

I nod and turn to leave but... there is something else...

"Sae, why did you say I look familiar to you?"

"I was only thinking about how much you resemble your poor mother."

I do not resemble my mother. That much I know. But I do not ask any more questions. Greasy Sae is right. It's not for me to know, and it's certainly not her business to tell me.

\- 6 -

In the evening, I kneel in front of Haymitch's coach. There is so much I want to say and ask him about as he flips through the news channels and sips on his liquor. All this new knowledge of mine to finally break through his wall... Yet, something stops me, and I cannot even make a sound.

"Haymitch," I whisper eventually, "I wanna ask you something..."

As his grey eyes are momentarily alert and sharp on me, I look back at him and think.

_"Is it true that I look like your girlfriend who is long-gone and forgotten by everyone? Have you known all this time that she was my father's older sister? Is that why you've been looking after me all this time as best as you could? Not letting my uncle sacrifice me for Grita. Warning me about the possible attack of the Capitol on District 12. Inventing that bawdy story for Plutarch Heavensbee so that no one at District 13 suspects that I mean something to you, and thus, no one can use me against you. Taking me in after all..."_

But I look into his grey Seam eyes, and all I say is, "I wanna ask if we can kill off one of your nasty geese to celebrate the Harvest festival?"

He springs up to his feet, and calls me stupid teen. Even though I am already of age.

I have to spend the rest of the evening explaining that I was just fooling around, and still he does not let me near his precious geese until the festival is over. All that even though geese are supposed to be eventually slaughtered. Otherwise, what's the point of keeping them? Go figure.

**Getting closer to the end of the story, and somewhat anxious. Now that I'm in the post-Mockingjay time frame, it's no longer a comfort zone. Maybe, two-three more chapters. Hope you're ok with the turn of the events. **


	16. Chapter 16 The Battle Field

\- 1 -

Living with Haymitch is a bit like walking on the mine field. For a rookie, it might seem just a plain meadow - with no way of telling where the mines are hidden until their foot steps on one - but an experienced sapper notices every small pit or elevation and learns to react accordingly. The first months are the strangest and the hardest because I am still transitioning from a rookie to a more or less profi, and often have no clue of what might trigger the intricate mechanism.

There are days when Haymitch is quite amiable. Teasing me because I dance the numbers from old Capitol musicals while washing dishes or cleaning rooms. Teaching me to play chess. Actually answering my questions rather than sullenly sipping his liquor and ordering me out of the living room. Making me read his insufferably long and moldy Before-Panem-era books – it turns out he has a stock of them in the empty space behind the wall panel in his electricity and "bug"-less office.

When I protest because what kind of a person in their right mind would ruin their eyesight over some gibberish like "Grief has limits, whereas apprehension has none. For we grieve only for what we know has happened, but we fear all that possibly may happen" by some Pliny the Elder fellow - What is that even supposed to mean? – Haymitch usually answers good-naturedly.

"Someone's got to take care of your education, girl. It doesn't look like the Capitol TV did a very good job."

Well, I guess once a mentor always a mentor. I try not to mind Haymitch drilling me the way he drills his geese – by now there are three of them – and generally treating me as a grumpy uncle might treat his irksome niece.

Yet, there are other days when he is sarcastic and unpleasant. Being gloomily silent or snapping at me for no reason at all. Nothing I do or say seems to satisfy him on these days. Really, one might think that the man who regularly makes a mess of the bathroom and kitchen areas and leaves heaps of his dirty clothes everywhere for me to take care of would be a bit more lenient when I occasionally misplace his chess board.

There are also nights. The nights when Greasy Sae's words about the tree that bends but does not break become my mantra. They remind me that I have come here on my own free will. That my life of today is the result of my conscious choice as a responsible adult, so there is nothing to whine about. That the man, who asks me to lock myself in my bedroom overnight, who then wanders about the dark and quiet house struggling to separate reality from the gruesome memories of his past, and falls asleep with a knife in his fist, will never-ever hurt me.

It is this instinctive knowledge that - even though I am wound up so tight that my insides go in a knot - makes me unlock my door, go downstairs, and lay down on the coach next to Haymitch or sit next to him at the kitchen table. I do this each time I hear Haymitch screaming his head off. Crying out for people I have never known but whose names have become as familiar to me as my own nightmares.

On these dark nights, there is nothing passionate lover-like about his lips brushing against my shoulder, or his hand on my breasts, or my hand on his crotch. Haymitch usually falls asleep sometime in the process or immediately after, and I stroke his hair and stare in the ceiling until the dawn breaks up. I am always up and gone in the morning while he is still snoring.

I am so sure that sobering Haymitch does not remember any of this, that it takes me by surprise when one afternoon, after a particularly bad night, he comes into the kitchen where I am washing dishes and says not unkindly.

"I wish you would have listened to me and stayed away. Don't you see it's no use, girl? These dreams of mine are much older than you."

"Older doesn't mean stronger," I answer and blush because I sound so fake and pretentious.

"You think it's all about the little princess hoping her blow jobs and self-sacrifice would eventually turn the beast into a prince?" now that his hangover really kicks in, Haymitch's tone becomes particularly nasty, " You just don't get it, do you? I am used to sleeping with my knife. Do you want me to cut you into spaghetti one night?"

"Why don't you simply try sleeping with me instead of your knife all night through?" I say quietly and cannot bring myself to look up into his face.

\- 2 -

One day I meet Peeta. He walks me down to the market, and after two more encounters, I even go to visit him. Since Katniss is obviously still debating with herself whether it is a good idea for them to finally move in together, and what of the two houses to choose, Peeta is waiting out and meanwhile, gets to keep his privacy.

At first, as we sit in his living room, Peeta is a bit withdrawn as if he is afraid I am going to refer to the time we have spent together in the hospital ward back at 13. Eventually though, as we chat about things of no particular importance, he smiles, and yet again becomes the old Peeta, my childhood friend and best partner in crime.

On my second visit I cannot help but ask,

"So, are you guys like official now?"

He shrugs,

"Well, you know...sort of..."

"High time after all. So, how do you both like it?"

Peeta blushes but quickly retorts,

"Are you and Haymitch official?"

Now, it's my time to shrug and mumble,

" I'd really like to know that myself... Why don't you do me a favor and ask him, and then tell me what he says?"

We both laugh a bit awkwardly knowing we are in the same boat. Realizing how little in our relations actually depends on our wishes, and how much depends on our partners' whims.

"Hey bread boy, if Katniss doesn't change her mind any time soon, you can always count on me," I wiggle my brows and demonstratively adjust my bra.

Peeta immediately gets back at me.

"Yeah, and if Haymitch kicks you out for occasionally smashing his last liquor bottle, you're always welcome at my place."

\- 3 -

I try not to get in Katniss's way. Each time she stops by, or both of them come with more pages to fill in that book of memories, I rush upstairs, or join the geese at the back yard. It is the same feeling as long time ago back at school. Something in her brisk manner and husky strong-willed voice rubs me wrong way. I never quite know whether I am afraid, jealous, or envious of her. Of the way she bosses Peeta around and jokes away with Haymitch. Of that part of their life that they all share together, and to where I am banned.

One warm October afternoon as I hear their voices and footsteps across the porch, I leave the dishes in the sink and am about to go upstairs as usual, when Haymitch suddenly says,

"Come on, Katniss is not going to bite you. She's pretty much domesticated now."

He is talking about Katniss in the same fondly manner as he talks about his nasty ever-hissing geese. "Come on, girl, go and feed them. They ain't gonna do nothing to you."

Yet, I am not amused. I am not afraid even if Katniss does bite me. What I am more worried about is what she might think and tell him about me. I am that sort of a girl she probably despises. Scatterbrained. Laughing away with boys - with anyone who was ready to smile back.

Nevertheless, I stay and make an effort to casually greet my former classmate. She is still a bit pale, there are pink burns on her shoulders and neck, and her hair is brushed into a plait.

Her face expression is a bit wary. It is not that she is hostile, it is that - as I have just realized - we have never really exchanged more than a few words before.

Without really thinking, I blurt out,

"It's kind of awkward. We've met like every day at school, and yet, I bet you don't even remember my name."

"I do remember you," she says, and I quickly look down at my toes and think about what exactly she might remember about those blurry days when I was slutting around with everyone including her very own Gale.

Yet, Katniss says something quite unexpected.

"I remember once your aunt brought you to my mum with your nose broken. We were like five or six years old. I was in the room and I asked you about what happened."

This becomes interesting. I do not remember this encounter at all.

"What did I reply?"

She shrugs.

"I don't really remember, but my mum told me off later, so that I don't bug you with questions at school."

"It was your uncle, wasn't it?" says Peeta somewhat urgently, "He was always getting at you, so that you often had to stay at my place overnight. Once, I hid you under my bed when my brothers came. Real or not real?"

"No..." I mumble before Haymitch decides to join in and share his memory of me hiding in the bushes on his porch or trying to feed him with my lemon pie. Then, I look into Peeta's confused eyes and decide that it is not worth trying to save my face, "Sorry, I was just kidding. Sure, it was real."

\- 4 -

While cleaning the house, I stockpile Haymitch's liquor and discreetly try to control his alcohol consumption so that it is no more than one bottle per day. My official explanation is that I am helping the liquor last till the next train comes. Now, with no Hob and no Ripper, the homemade liquor supplies in our district are practically non-existent, and from time to time, I even get to pretend we are running out of stock. Surprisingly, Haymitch does not protest, and it takes me a while to figure out the real reason behind his complacency.

I try not to mind Katniss who can casually kick the door of Haymitch's house open at any time of day or night as it has obviously been her habit ever since her first Games. Apparently having no second thought of me. Being distant, harsh, and a bit condescending like she has always been, even at school. Yet, when I see her passing a bottle of liquor to Haymitch behind my back when they both think I am too busy with Peeta's pastry in the kitchen, I am so outraged I want to scream, and the Mockingjay or not, I feel a strong urge to kick her butt.

The next day I am marching off to Katniss's house and on my way there, I ask Peeta who is clearing snow off the porch not to disturb us for a while.

I think Katniss has figured out why I need her alone because one of her fine eyebrows is slightly raised, and her grey eyes are particularly distant and cold. I do feel a bit of a weirdo fussing so much over what she and Haymitch probably think as no big deal but for his sake, I am ready to be an odd girl out.

I come closer to her, my former classmate, the magnificent Mockingjay, the pride and symbol of our district, our half-broken toy, and say.

"You would very much oblige me if you don't make any anti-prohibition alliances with Haymitch."

She half-smiles.

"Name me one reason why I should even listen to you."

I suddenly see myself through her eyes. A silly girl having no idea of what they all have been through. Using fancy words, and trying to dictate the rules. She is right. I am pathetic as Haymitch would say. Is it indeed that she does not like me as I have always thought? Or is it that I myself dislike her?

"Sorry," I say, "That was rude of me."

She scowls and waits for what more I have in store.

"Do you want me to name the reason?" I ask, "It's not about me or you. It's about giving the man less opportunities to destroy himself. You and Peeta've got help. You've got your second chance whether you like it or not. So I am trying as best as I can for Haymitch to get his fair chance as well."

She blinks, and her face - no, it does not change - but becomes ... more gentle? Yes, that's it. It is no longer that smooth impenetrable face of the Mockingjay, but her real smile from the times her father used to take her from school. The smile that I still sometimes see when she is teasing Haymitch or talking to Peeta.

I think then _now I know what it is in you. Now I know why everyone myself included went crazy about you. And finally, I don't envy you at all. You do deserve love. You, and Haymitch, and Peeta, and dozens of other tributes whose names I have either not even known or already forgotten - you guys deserve so much more than what you've ended up with._

Katniss says almost apologetically.

"It's a deal. I'll try to be your ally from now on."

It is a joke, the kind she might have said to Haymitch. I feel what it must have cost her to include me in their inner circle, and I am grateful to her for that effort.

That is it. When Peeta comes in a minute or two later - looking a bit worried and probably expecting to see us at each other's throats - Katniss and me are peacefully discussing her mother's plantbook recipes.

\- 5 -

The first anniversary of the rebels' victory comes. The TV brims over with the commemorative speeches, ceremonies, and familiar faces on the screen. They carefully avoid mentioning Katniss's role in Snow's execution or Coin's death. Now, it is all about the unhappy accident and PTSD that impacted Katniss's shooting skills. Well, they would have probably had a slightly different opinion if they could see a pack of squirrels Katniss left for us on the kitchen counter last week.

One evening, there is a long-distance video call from ever-sanguine Plutarch Heavensbee. After their brief talk behind the closed doors, Haymitch orders me upstairs - his face darker than the darkest cloud.

Late at night I wake up from the usual sound of the bottles clinging and dishes being smashed.

When I come down, Haymitch is drunk. Very. Extremely drunk. I know immediately we are in for a bad night. Possibly the worst night since I have come to live at his place because he is the drunkest I have ever seen him.

He approaches me reeking of liquor and grins as I turn away.

"Something wrong, little Lia? How about giving me a kiss? No? You don't feel like it anymore? That's a pity. I'm out of luck then... well, like they say, make hay while the sun shines."

He lets go of me and takes a swig from yet another bottle.

"Please," I say cautiously, "Don't you think you've had enough for today?"

"Come on girl! Did you come here to baby-sit me again? It's getting boring," he shakes his head, "You definitely have some mothering issues, you do know that, right? What is it? Some sort of guilt complex or compensatory mechanism?"

That hurts. Never before has he made any hint at my daughter. Suddenly, it takes all of me not to slap him across the face. I know if I do this, we are lost. We'll descend into madness of screaming at each other and breaking things.

Breathe in. Breathe out. It has never been than bad before.

"I'm just trying to help you," my voice is shaking.

"Wanna help? Then let me be! Don't come down here to put me in bed in the morning. Don't coax Katniss and Peeta into alliances. They never seem to have any extra liquor now. What kind of a doll-house is this? I am tired of pulling myself together for your sake. Letting you fuss over me and pretending that all is well. Falling asleep by your side and seeing the same dream over and over again. Wanna know what my most recurrent dream is like now? You laying on that damned coach in a puddle of blood with your guts out or your throat slit open. Myself standing over you. With a knife in my hand..."

Haymitch stops abruptly and takes another swig from his bottle. His hand is shaking, and his Adam's apple is twitching.

I guess I should have been scared. Instead though, all I feel is anger. Anger and sinking sorrow.

I punch him in the chest while he is still drinking, and he starts to cough and sputter because of course he did not expect that (I did not expect that from myself!). While he is still coughing, I snatch the bottle and smash it against the remaining bottles on the little table - yeees... That's what we started from more than ten years ago and that's what we end up with. Me destroying his bottles. The liquor and glass squirt everywhere, and the flame in the chimney place whooshes up high.

I see the tiny reflection of these flames growing hotter and brighter in Haymitch's narrowed pupils.

"You damned fool!"

I step back and instinctively cover.

At this, he winces, and the blind rage in his eyes melts into remorse.

"Sorry, Lia. I guess I crossed the line... I didn't mean to… I just needed my drink, okay? Very badly. That's all. It's not about you."

My anger is gone now. When I talk back – or rather whisper hoarsely, there is nothing left in me but howling wind of sorrow.

"Don't you dare apologizing to me! You don't ever have to apologize for anything... If I knew that would make you one bit happier, believe me, I'd be gone right away and left you with a wagon full of liquor bottles. But tell me, Haymitch, will you be happier if I go?"

For a moment he holds my stare. Then, he roars with laughter. He laughs away as only Haymitch can. Bitterly. Sarcastically. Dismissively. Laughs at me and himself making such a mess of our lives.

We are both at the arena now. My arms have been laid down. All my strategies have failed. I have lost. The mine has just exploded under my feet.


	17. Chapter 17 Sweetheart and Girl

\- 1 –

I have never been the tough one, not I... So, when I turn around and run upstairs, I am naturally bawling. All I am capable of now is to stuff some of my clothes into a canvas bag, put on an extra sweater, and then I am done and wasted. I cannot make myself go back through the living room towards the front door. The strong scent of liquor and shards of glass under my feet…The man whom I left in that room… How am I to pass by as if I am still whole and not hurting? So, I end up climbing out of the window – down the downspout – collapsing into the snowdrift – it's gonna be a big bruise – where is my bag? – did I leave it in the bedroom? – oh well, what does it matter?

No moonlight today. Black clouds and white blizzard. As I am blindly stumbling down the road and passing the houses on my left and right, it is all dark and quiet.

It takes Greasy Sae just one look at my I-am-a-puppy-that-has-been-whipped face to stop complaining that I've woken her up with my banging on her door. She invites me in and forcefully closes the door against the howling wind.

Then, wrapped in blankets, with a mug of hot broth in my hands, I am sitting on her bed (herself gone to share the coach with her granddaughter) and crying my eyes out.

Why oh why? What happened to Haymitch and his tributes is certainly not my fault. Am I to tip toe about the house while the man who does not even really want me there is having yet another relapse till the end of my days? I am young. I could have had anything I want now, as the borders between the districts and the Capitol have been demarcated, as the world has turned upside down...

But who am I trying to fool? I do not care about the Capitol or dancing if I cannot have Haymitch. Because he has always been in my life. Because if it were not for him, there would have been no me. There would have been just another bimbo warming bed for the head Peacekeeper Cray and alike. A broken doll. He's given me myself.

So, at the end, I wipe off my face and fall asleep under the covers - listening to the wind rapping on the window.

\- 2 -

In the morning, the world outside is bright and sparkling. I gloomily drink another mug of broth and dive back into my blankets.

Sae sighs, shakes her head disapprovingly, and grumbles something about the spoilt merchant kid who is sulking over nothing and needs some good thrashing. Yet, she leaves me be. I drift in and out while her granddaughter amuses herself with tugging on my hair.

There will be yet another day to think about what to do with myself. To borrow money from Peeta to go to District 10. Not today. It hurts too much.

\- 3 -

In the afternoon, just as I am about to make up my mind to get out of my bed – to get rid of Sae's granddaughter who is now trying to tie her hair ribbon around my ankles - there is a knock on the door, and soon enough, I hear familiar voices downstairs.

"Stormy night, wasn't it? I wouldn't have even let my dog out."

"Come on, Sae, you don't have a dog."

"I'm just saying... So, what did you come for? Not for my pretty eyes, that's for sure."

"Do you happen to have my girl around?"

"Your girl, huh? Doesn't seem like she's too happy being your girl."

"What are you talking about? How can she not be happy? I mean just look at me. Aint' I a keeper?"

They both laugh, and I frantically search for a mirror. I must be a sight now with my puffy red-nosed red-eyed face and my tangled hair.

As Haymitch walks into the room, Sae's granddaughter smiles and comes towards him as if expecting some treat. He digs something out of his pocket for her, and then approaches the bed I am lying on. Coward as I am, I quickly turn away and pretend sleeping.

As Haymitch comes around the bed to face me and sits by my side, I am almost surprised to see that his face is still the same. His slightly mocking grey eyes and wrinkles. Yet, something did change. He shaved and even changed his shirt. The smell of liquor is still lingering on his breath but it is mixed with the scent of toothpaste.

"Well, runaway, let's not abuse Sae's hospitality any longer," he smiles his usual ironic smile, "They say, there's no place like home."

I shake my head. Ashamed more than anything else. Because now as I come to think of this, it does seem a bit childish running off to Sae in the middle of the night. Grown-up women do not wash their dirty laundry in public. They prefer to settle whatever disagreements they might have with their partners behind closed doors.

Still, I answer stubbornly, "No, you don't want me there."

"Yes, you're right. I would definitely prefer to get rid of you," he says, "I came here only out of the goodness of my heart. 'Cause you see, that's the way I am. A knight in the shining armor."

His tone is light and breezy. The same tone I have just heard him talk to Sae in. As Haymitch grins at me, I do so much want to take it easy. Just let it go. Isn't it enough that he cares about me in his own peculiar way. Why do I keep banging my head against the same wall? Why do I crave for more?

Yet, instead of talking back in the same easy self-deprecating manner, I say slowly,

"I always meant to ask you... What's the difference between calling someone sweetheart or girl?"

As he watches me curiously – his eyebrows slightly raised - I blush and lower my forehead between my arms,

"I mean you always call Katniss sweetheart... and with me, it's always like hey girl."

I hear Haymitch chuckling, and then he cups my chin in his hand and lifts my head.

I am trying to turn away but his hand is both gentle and firm.

"Now, Lia," he says, "Don't make me feel a bigger jerk than I actually am."

As I stop struggling, we look at each other. I see my own tiny reflection in his grey Seam eyes, and I wonder what he sees in me at this moment. Am I for him still the same little girl he used to shoo away from his house? The stupid porcelain doll who wanted to build a doll-house and happy hereafter with the man whose soul is on fire. Yes, Katniss is not so special after all. She's just younger and a bit luckier than him.

And then he answers my unspoken question,

"Look at you. Tell me how come I get to keep such a beautiful girl all for myself?"

I have never been beautiful. In our district, Madge was the beautiful one. Katniss was naturally striking. Delly was curvy. I could be occasionally pretty. Funny. Tempting. Anything but beautiful.

Yet, I choose to believe him. I believe his eyes that are still on me. I believe him enough to close my own eyes, reach out, and blindly touch his face and his hair all cold and wet with melting snow.

\- 4 -

The sun finally shines on, as we make it back to the Village, and people are busy shoveling the snow off their porches. It strikes me how different the Victors' Village looks now – with all the houses occupied and children running from one door to another. Playing snowballs.

Peeta waves his hand upon seeing us.

"Guess what? Katniss's gone hunting. She said it's best after the snowfall. One might easily spot the tracks."

"In that case, I'll be more worried about animals than Katniss," I say lightly.

Peeta's cheek twitches nervously, and I bite my tongue. I am trying hard, but it is not easy being the one relatively undamaged among three people maimed both physically and morally by the Games and war. Sometimes I plain forget or overlook the signs.

Peeta does not look at me though. He is watching Haymitch as if expecting some clue.

"She'll be fine. Probably just needs some time on her own after Plutarch's call," Haymitch says casually, and Peeta's face relaxes, "Like you said, one might easily spot the tracks. Say if she's not back by three pm, we'll go hunt her. Wanna come around?"

"No, I'd better go try that new bread recipe Annie sent us last week. Coming for dinner tonight?"

"Sure. Why not?"

"Yeah," Peeta's gaze is still somewhat unfocused but he takes hold of himself, "Why not? After all, it's the Victory anniversary."

\- 5 -

The snow lies high on our porch, and little fragments of icicles hanging on the roof shower us as Haymitch bangs the door open. The geese honk out of their pen.

"I'll go feed them," I sigh because the process of feeding these hissing malignant creatures never excites me. I often wish Haymitch would set his mind on more loveable pets. Hamsters or turtles, for instance.

"They've already had their breakfast."

There is no end to little wonders this day. From Haymitch actually being up after the night of drunken rampage to him remembering to shower and feed the geese. For just a tiny fraction of a second, I even have a wild idea that he has washed the dishes and tossed his dirty socks into the laundry basket, but I guess that's too much to hope for.

"Okay," I say, "Then, I'll get the shovel to clear off the porch."

For some reason, I am reluctant to go inside and meet with the reminders of our night quarrel. The pieces of glass stuck in the carpet. That awkward silence that imminently hangs between two people who have told each other things they now wish they didn't.

Haymitch sure sees right through me because he takes me by my shoulder and slightly nudges me towards the entrance.

"The snow will melt on its own when spring comes," and when I do not smile back, he says quietly, "Please, Lia, don't make things even more complicated than they actually are."

As I look up, Haymitch's face is a strange mixture of sad understanding, aloofness, and raw urgency. This is not the usual grimace of lust, tenderness, and embarrassment I am used to seeing in men's faces at such moments. It is more like he is resigned, and the thought gives him both guilty pleasure and pain.

\- 6 -

The waves go whoosh-whoosh in my ears. Over my head. I am drowning… dissolving… reassembling myself... resurrecting… When I come - or rather emerge from under the waves - my throat is sore, and for a good while, I can still feel faint pulsing jolts going throughout my body, even though I am laying on my back without as much as moving a finger. I get so absorbed in these sensations that at first, I do not notice that Haymitch is no longer next to me.

And when I do notice, I am up - all flustered,

"Where have you been?"

"Easy, girl. Had to take a leak."

"Oh sorry," I hesitate, but the question is really too important to be overlooked, "Haymitch... There is something I want to ask you. I just felt something... I don't even know how to explain the feeling. I am trying to decide if it could possibly be an orgasm."

As I look at him, he is clearly amused.

"Don't laugh at me. I tell you, I am not sure. I've only felt something similar once before with Aelius but I was high then, and it was definitely not as strong as this time, and…"

Haymitch sighs and says patiently,

"Well, you don't need to have any more doubts on the matter."

"How do you know?" now I become curious, "Can men feel it?!"

He looks at me incredulously.

"Girl, I am not going to lecture on birds and bees. If you do not believe in learning by doing, I'd better order an anatomy textbook or something."

"Haha," I say bitterly, "I thought I had no lack of practice at school."

"Poor thing. What kind of bastards you've had?"

I think a little and smile,

"Okay, can we do it again then?"

"Hey, give me a bit of a break."

"Why? I am only following your advice. Learning by doing, right?"

"Let the lesson sink in first. Take one step at a time.

"Sure, you are the mentor."

\- 7 –

It is dark outside, and it is high time for dinner with Katniss and Peeta, yet, I am not going to be the one to bring the subject up. For all I care, the world could be on fire with this bedroom as its center – I would still want to be here leaning against Haymitch. His shoulder is the only thing that is real.

"What did Mr. Heavensbee talk to you about yesterday?" I ask not because I expect Haymitch to answer my question but just to hold us together in this space a bit longer.

Yet, surprisingly, Haymitch does answer me,

"He called on the occasion of the first anniversary and … to extend his offer."

"What offer?"

I fully expect him to say that curiosity killed the cat, but Haymitch seems okay with my interrogation, even though he obviously does not give out the details.

"Plutarch appears to slightly overrate my potential. He believes there is a perfect job for me in the Capitol which is sort of in line with what I've been doing before."

"You mean mentoring?"

"Hell no! Bite your tongue."

"Sorry… so, erm, are you going to take on his offer? I mean if it is not mentoring, and something that you might like… maybe, it's not such a bad idea."

He grins,

"So, that's what it is about? I should have known you'd jump on the chance to move to the Capitol."

This is so Haymitch-like. Taking people by surprise while stating something unbelievable as if it was the most obvious and natural thing in the world. Only yesterday I was not even sure if he wanted me in his house, and today he is basically telling me he would have taken me even to the Capitol.

I know he is only kidding but still I say,

"I'm okay to be wherever you are. Capitol or no Capitol."

He sighs in mock distress,

"Girl, you'll make me cry liquor tears."

I think that Katniss would have probably found the right words. The words that would not seem pathetic or drama-queen-like. But I am not her, and as such, I will most likely be to Haymitch what Peeta is to Katniss. I will always be the one to speak of love. But I can live with that. Didn't I read in one of those old Haymitch's books that one turns the cheek, and the other kisses it?

It is very late – too late for dinner – and the windows in the house opposite ours grow dark.

"You know… I sometimes have bad dreams too,"

Haymitch does not move or say anything but somehow manages to make his silence encouraging enough so as to prompt me to go on.

"It started on the first night I moved back to 12," I say, "I don't know why I'm saying it's dreams because it's more like one and the same dream actually. The settings never change. I enter the dining room at my uncle's old place, and there is that large round table, and people having their dinner. It's always people who are dead. Like my mom and dad. I can't see their faces clearly – but I just know it's them. Grita. My uncle. Mr. Undersee and his family. Aelius. That Seam man whom I pushed away because his hair was on fire. They are just sitting there as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Eating. Chatting. And I am so scared that I scream, 'It is not real. You're all dead.' - They laugh, 'Do we look like dead to you?' - And I'm like, 'No, but it doesn't matter because I know you are dead all the same.' - Then someone – it's usually my mom – says, 'Very well, darling, then look in the mirror above the mantelpiece.' I don't want to but I still go to the mirror, and I scream again because what I see is my own face half-decayed, eaten by worms or something… Then my mom or Grita says to me, 'Hush, Lia, don't shout so loud. You'll wake up the baby.' - and I'm like, 'What baby?' - but I already know what baby they are talking about… and this is the very worst thing in this dream. Much worse than seeing myself in the mirror. Because – you see – I understand that if the baby is there, she must be dead too, and it's me who killed her…"

I fall silent and bite my lip.

"It's called Thanatos," Haymitch says calmly as though we are discussing the latest weather report.

"Thana… what?"

"Thanatos dreams. In Ancient Greek, Thanatos means death. Basically, it's your death instinct clashing with your survival instinct. The first is subconscious, and the latter is conscious. Or the other way around."

"Say it again in English, please."

I don't even know what that Ancient Greek thing is. Must have been before the Panem Era.

"Never mind," Haymitch says, and his arm goes around my shoulder, "Go on. So, they tell you not to wake up the baby, and then what?"

"Then nothing," I say, "I never know for sure if she is really there or not. I always wake up before they bring her to me."

"Good."

"I guess so… when I wake up, it's usually 3 or 4 in the morning, and it's like I'm the last person left in the world. So cold, dark, and quiet. And then I hear your footsteps down below in the living room, and I am so happy – I run downstairs, and I could care less if you are drunk, or surly, or anything. I never dream this dream in the morning when I'm next to you."


	18. Chapter 18 Epilogue

**Okay, so the story is done. I decided to post the last few chapters at once before I change my mind or something else interferes again.**

**Not sure if people are still reading/following it. It's been a while since I last updated.**

**If** **anyone is out there, it would mean the world to me if you could let me know what you think. **

**Hope you enjoyed it. **

EPILOGUE

My story is almost over. I am flipping through the last few pages of my memory just like Katniss and Peeta leaf through the pages of their book.

\- 1 –

It's been three, five, ten years. The uneventful years. The peaceful daily routine which is only occasionally interrupted by calls or visits from old acquaintances.

Plutarch Heavensbee who is always in the midst of some action be it the inter-district Annual Summit on weapon control, a failed putsch led by a few former Snow's supporters, or the experts' debates on the bombshell reports from Coin's administration that have been made public just before the sixth anniversary of the Victory.

Venia and Effie Trinket who visit shortly after to prep non-cooperative Haymitch, Katniss, and Peeta for a long interview for the TV documentary about the Games and fallen tributes.

Johanna Mason and Gale Hawthorne who might not be dating but who, nevertheless, arrive at the same time and discreetly stay in the same room at the recently opened local motel.

Annie and Finnick Odair-junior who is so much like his father that it is no wonder his arrival is a sure sign that soon all local school girls are patrolling the Mellarks' front door 24/7.

My cousin Rote, his plump wife, and a bunch of their kids with the eldest girl Grita being the most obnoxious little brat ever. Her favorite occupation is shooing the geese around the back yard. The geese take revenge by hissing and biting me for days and days after.

I will be lying to myself if I say that there are no moments when I want to board the train that takes our friends away. To be a part of a larger world. To see the city lights. To wear long silk dresses and dance at the contests. To see other men staring and smiling approvingly at me. Yet, I've already made my choice long ago, and I am not giving up my hard-won life and peace of mind for something that is not-me.

\- 2 –

When Haymitch is in between his drinking spells, he can actually be quite resourceful if he cares to. For instance, he is always predicting the need for a reform months before Paylor's administration even starts musing about a new bill. So, no news on TV comes as a surprise for me. I have never been smart, so I stand in natural awe of people who can calculate these complex things in advance, not mentioning the revolution planning.

I have a feeling that Haymitch could have easily tried for a Mayor but for some reason, he stubbornly (or rather indolently) prefers raising geese.

Nevertheless, when during the first years, people at 12 are pondering over what they can make their living with since the mines are destroyed now, it is Haymitch who, after casually leafing through Katniss's plant book, first brings up the idea of medicines.

Yet, it takes me a couple of weeks to coax him into talking things over with the new Mayor, who in turn, brings the idea to the Capitol, and soon, the new factory for making medicines is being constructed.

\- 3 -

With Mrs. Everdeen's help, I take distance courses and in a couple of years, finally get my degree in pharmaceutics which comes in handy as the new medicine manufacturing industry develops in our district. Two evenings a week I also work at a local school. Teaching kids dancing. No longer all classes are about coal and mining only. One student of mine even wins the third place at the inter-district dance competition among the junior-high school students. She gets to be on TV, and it is the first time ever that seeing the face of a local kid on the screen does not fill me with dread.

\- 4 –

One day, there is a long-distance call. I never answer these calls since chances are they are for Haymitch. Unless it is the end of the month when my aunt usually calls from 10 to brief me on her farming accomplishments and give more instructions on how to take care of the memorial erected for my uncle.

This time, however, Haymitch calls me to the phone, and at the other end of the line, I hear some unfamiliar girl's voice,

"Hi, am I talking to Lia Rosany?"

"Lia Abernathy," I correct automatically, "Who is speaking?"

The other end of the line is silent, and then, the same hesitant voice with an unmistakable Capitol accent says,

"Mom?"

My knees buckle.

"Who is it?.."

"Oh sorry… right… should have told you. I'm Aelia," the girl giggles nervously.

"Right... sorry... of course...Aelia. How's … how's your grandmother?"

"Grandma died two years ago…"

"Oh, I am sorry."

"Grandpa is alive and kicking though. Mr. Heavensbee finally talked some sense into him. So, grandpa's fine with me meeting you... I mean... if… you want to...meet me," she giggles again. Her voice is a peculiar mixture of hopefulness, cocky self-confidence, and uncertainty.

Heavensbee? What does he have to do with all this? How does he even know? Most importantly, how does my daughter know about me? I turn to look at Haymitch and he winks at me as if not aware of my confusion. That is how I know. Unlike myself, he has not given up on me and my kid.

After a couple more phone calls and arrangements being made, the girl arrives to District 12, and when I wait to meet Aelia at the train station, I recognize my daughter at once. A tall muscular teenager. Her father's spitting image.

Chattering about fencing and martial arts. Boasting about the boys she has beaten black and blue at school. I don't particularly enjoy listening to all this, but Haymitch seems to be genuinely amused.

"Do you happen to know one charming lady in your district who goes by name Enobaria. Something tells me you two might like each other."

"Yeah, she's like totally cool. She's my martial arts instructor," the girl says casually, and Haymitch roars with laughter watching my flabbergasted face.

"I like dancing too," Aelia says, and I am somewhat more at ease.

We have not become the best friends with my daughter. Too much time has been lost. Too many unanswered questions between us. Yet, once in a while, we do call each other, and it feels good to know that my ten-year-old decision proved right. That indeed I did what was best for her.

\- 5 -

The nine months when Katniss is expecting her first baby are not easy for all of us. Our girl on fire is now more like a 12-year-old teen scared out of her wits on the day of her first reaping. Some days she is almost her old self, other days she seems completely lost and gone. Only Haymitch can sometimes talk some sense into her. Unlike most of women, she is not scared of giving birth, but she is freaking out because she is terribly uncertain about the child's future.

It is my impertinent Aelia visiting us this summer who somewhat helps ease the tension.

"Really, to listen to all of you," she says in her typical cocky manner, "One might think the end of the world is coming. Well, take it easy. Our astronomy teacher has been raving about meteors for ages, and so did our geography teacher - about the cracks on the earth's surface. Not to mention our social science and history profs! You might as well deliver that damned baby sooner than later, then it might stand a decent chance of living its life on a solid whole planet. Cross your fingers, everyone!"

Peeta suddenly looks terribly worried. I keep silence and look away to make everyone forget it's my very own kid speaking. Yet, Haymitch starts laughing, and then Katniss cracks up.

\- 6 -

Haymitch finally tells me his story on one of those dark sleepless nights as we are sitting next to each other on the old coach in the living room. My head as usual on his lap.

He tells me about his father who worked in the mines and hated it so much that once he went to work in the morning and simply did not come back. Nobody heard of him ever since, but the rumors were that he had run away into the woods and been caught by the Peacekeepers. About his delicate mother who was left to starve with her two boys. About his younger brother whom he protected as well as he could and made sure that the boy attended school instead of rambling around looking for food. At the end, he even briefly mentions his girlfriend.

My heart is in my throat when I ask,

"Do I look anything like her?"

He watches me quizzically,

"You're full of surprises, aren't you? How long have you known?"

"For ages. My aunt once dropped a hint, and then, Greasy Sae confirmed."

He does not say anything for a very long time, and when he finally does talk, it is as if I accidentally reopened his old wound.

"It's not what you are thinking of. I'm not staying with you because you look like her."

I reach out to him.

"It doesn't really matter to me now. Never did."

He shakes his head,

"She is a part of the life I don't even remember much about anymore. Back then, I was hardly the same person I am now. "

"I know," I whisper.

In a flash, I see Haymitch Abernathy as he might have probably been by now if it were not for the President Snow's regime. The handsome sharp-minded dangerous man who knows what he wants and plays people like chess pieces. A politician, most likely... a mayor, or even more… much more… This bright vision makes me want to cry. Yet, at the same time, a part of me stays smug and content. Because in that other non-existing reality, I would have been nobody for him, and he would have been only a face on the large screen for me.

\- 7 -

This is my story, true, but it is not about me at all. So, how do I end it?

We live. Raising the geese, struggling with Haymitch's drinking spells, and visiting the Mellarks. I did not get to be a decent mother to Aelia but I am trying to make up for that by being the best aunt ever to Katniss and Peeta's children. I am doing this for everyone – myself, Prim, and Peeta's brothers.

We have our happy moments, and we have our hell. I am not always patient and reasonable, and Haymitch is his usual sarcastic surly self most of the time. Yet, we are fine.

The good and bad dreams alike are merely dreams after all.

There is still real life to hold on to and try to make the best of.


	19. PS - How main characters look like

I was not quite sure where to add this, so I decided to leave it here as P.S. for those who, after reading the story, might be interested.

I've got a PM today asking me what the main character (Lia) actually looked like. I usually don't like detailed appearance descriptions, so I had next to nothing in the story.

For those of you who might like a face to go with the character, the French singer Alizée in the video "Moi... Lolita" is probably the closest to what I had in my mind when writing Lia.

Also, just wanted to add a few words about Haymitch. I absolutely love Woody Harrelson's acting and genius interpretation, but with all due respect, if we go by the book description, Haymitch was neither blond, nor lean. So, when I was writing this story, I imagined someone similar to Colin Farrell in the first episodes of True Detective.


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